'Each man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world'
-- Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms

'Artists are tricky fellows sir, forever shaping the world according to some design of their own'
-- Jonathan Strange, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Sunday 26 February 2012

James Clapper and the Syrian power vacuum

It's been an interesting couple of weeks for the Arab Spring.

"And the award for best supporting role goes to": James Clapper flanked by Robert Mueller and David Petraeus, 31 January, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, told Congress' Senate Armed Services Committee that al-Qaeda in Iraq could infilitrate the power vacuum in Syria should the Assad regime fall. That, said Clapper, could give AQI access to Syrian WMD stockpiles - known to be at least chemical weapons. That raises quite a security concern for the US as it one again joins AQ to the WMD threat, which has proved resilient and enduring in the American national psyche. After all, it was Saddam and his "links" to AQ, and Saddam's "WMD stockpile" that prompted the 2003 invasion. Before that of course, AQI didn't exist - now it is a well-trained though fractured terrorist entity. Clapper's statement covered old ground and was near identical a statement he gave six days earlier. The Syria comments were in the questioning that came after the statement:

Senator Webb:
[...] We had General Dempsey up here 2 days ago. I asked him a
question about the nature of the opposition in Syria, the question
going not to what the Assad regime would be capable of doing
which, by the way, Director, I thought you laid out in very understandable
specifics, but really what is on the other side of the picket
line. Who are they? How much of this is domestic? How much
of it is foreign? What is the regional dynamic?
And he made one comment. I am going to give you a partial
quote. He said, Syria is a much different situation than we collectively
saw in Libya. It presents a very different challenge in which
we also know that other regional actors are providing support as
a part of a Sunni majority rebelling against an oppressive regime.
We all know this. I think you made some comments about this as
well.
I asked him about the reports in the media last week that al
Qaeda was involved in some of the assassination attempts in Syria.
He would not reject it out of hand. He said he did not know [...]


Director CLAPPER. Let me take a stab at that and then I will ask
General Burgess to amplify or correct, as the case may be.
As I indicated earlier, the opposition is very fractionated. There
is not a national movement even though there is a title of the Syrian
National Council, but a lot of that is from external, exiles and
the like. But there is not a unitary, connected opposition force. It
is very local. It is on a community-by-community basis. In fact, in
some communities, the opposition is actually providing municipal
services as though it is running the community and trying to defend
itself against attacks from the Syrian regime-controlled military.
The Free Syrian Army, which is kind of a blanket, generic name
that is sort of applied to the collection of oppositionists, is itself not
unified. There is an internal feud about who is going to lead it.
Complicating this, as you implied, of course, are sort of the
neighborhood dynamics. The Iranians are very, very concerned
about propping up Assad. So they have sent help in terms of trainers,
advisors, and equipment, mostly riot suppression equipment,
that sort of thing.
AQ. Another disturbing phenomenon that we have seen recently
apparently is the presence of extremists who have infiltrated the
opposition groups. The opposition groups, in many cases, may not
be aware they are there.
We have had the two attacks that you alluded to, the two bombings
in Damascus in December I think it was and then the two additional
bombings in Aleppo, both of which were targeted against
security and intelligence buildings and had all the earmarks of an
al Qaeda-like attack. And so we believe that al Qaeda in Iraq is
extending its reach into Syria.
Complicating all this is—this is another contrast with Libya
where we had one or two or three sites that had chemical warfare
components. It is a much more complex issue in Syria which has
an extensive network of such installations, although to this point—
and we are watching these very carefully—they appear to be secure.
So many complexities here involving the opposition which I am
sure will affect any discussion about coming to some assistance [...]

Clapper has predicted the end of the Assad regime and has given a substantial statement before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in which he argued that AQ were still potent mainly through regional affiliates (Clapper named AQIM and the Shabaab) were growing in reach and stature:

"Absent more effective and sustained activities to disrupt them, some regional affiliates—particularly al-Qa‟ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and al-Shabaab in Somalia—probably will grow stronger. The result may be that regional affiliates conducting most of the terrorist attacks and multiple voices will provide inspiration for the global jihadist movement.
These regional affiliates will continue to focus on local agendas, but also will pursue international terrorist attacks.
"

Adding to the chord, Leon Panetta, Defense Secretary observed that the AQ spectre made the Syria situation that much more important for America.

The spectre of AQI in Syria demonstrates the fluid nature of the allegiances of non-state actors in the region. At the height of the Iraq conflict, Syria (the Assad regime) was criticised for allowing in foreign fighters to the Iraq theatre. Of course, as Thomas Hegghammer has observed (International Security, Winter 2010/2011), few foreign fighters are affiliated to AQ, though of course AQ leaders want us to believe the affiliated numbers are larger. But AQ and Syria were not in conflict - now the US authorities would have us believe AQI is fighting against the Assad regime.

So why is the tide turning against Assad? Popular discontent is a powerful potion. Hamas have now publicly disclaimed Assad and sided with the rebels. In the light of continuing human rights abuses, Russia and China may feel increasing pressure, if not to act then at least be passive. But the US will consider a power vacuum or an unknown quantity assuming power, or Clapper's "fractionated" power landscape as probably less attractive alternatives to the strongman control of Assad. Better the devil you know. Egypt isn't a particularly pleasant experience for Americans currently. Certainly, there are no pro-American sentiments espoused in Homs nor a particular push for democracy - just a rebellion against continual oppression. It's something that would resonate with us all.

Monday 20 February 2012

A Call to Arms: Greece buys Franco-German Weapons

Interesting article from Independent, that over the last decade, Greece has been one of the top five arms importers in the world, with a population of only eleven million, and that a lot of defence ministers had been bribed, though the article does not provide further details on the latter allegations. The justification is the perceived threat from Turkey.

Which throws up a number of questions - has forced militarisation sunk the Greek economy? has it been forced from within, as a genuine foreign policy concern or has it been forced from a franco-german defence axis keen for foreign markets? And couldn't Greece have made a defence pact with France and Germany, beneath the E.U umbrella, negating such a large defence budget?

The article notes the severity of the arms procurement, for example,

"Even in 2010, when the extent of the financial disaster was apparent, Greece bought 223 howitzers and a submarine from Germany at a cost of €403m"

Historians will examine the budgets of these periphery nations and may well judge that arms procurement was key in melting at least the Greek economy.

But why does it so often play out that nations will escalate weapons procurement, even in the face of severe fiscal restrictions? Think of the military complex and its part in the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the rhetoric of an external enemy plays well with incumbent politicians. There's a global recession, sure, but that hasn't stopped Putin this weekend from pledging more money for defense. The reason? NATO's proposed missile shield. Putin is strong on foreign policy, hence to identify an external aggressor leads the voter to choose a strong leader. Only then, the leader must live up the rhetoric and pursue crippling and unnecessary defense spending.



Further reading:

Andrew Feinstein, 'The Shadow World"

Wednesday 15 February 2012

Cracks in the Resistance: Homs is not Benghazi

NATO airpower meant that the army, which was still very much under the control of Qaddafi, couldn't move to and around Benghazi, which in turn meant that the city's population could not be brutally suppressed. Logistically, operating from Italian airbases, enough sorties could be flown to drastically reduce the number of army units around the city.

The absence of a UN resolution and the presence of 'great power' politics means that the situation in Homs resembles a Benghazi without NATO intervention. A superb report from the BBC World Service this morning talked of rival resistance leaders, who could not stand one another, see the further reporting from Paul Wood here. It also suggested that the army was showing no signs of disintegrating and still held the monopoly on violence. In Egypt, the army stood to one side, remember.

A further important distinction to be made is the absence of heavy weaponry among the resistance. The army have armour and heavy weapons and hence can control large urban areas more easily. They have cut off likely supply routes so that illicit channels cannot be used to arm the resistance. Which makes Homs the vanguard of the Arab Spring in that it represents a suppressed population resisting by itself a minority ruling entity. And Syria is set to become a net importer of oil within a decade if current trends continue meaning its role as an energy supplier to the West is negligible, meaning it's strategic interest to the West is negligible:

SOURCE
What resonance do the events in Homs have for the West? Little, if media interest is used to gauge appetite. Unless illicit channels are used to coordinate resistance and arm it, Homs will be used by the Assad regime as an example, and history is replete with the teaching of lessons. From Alexander levelling Thebes (after which Athens was shocked into submission), to Michael Leeden saying that, 'every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.' It isn't culture specific. It's the will to power. And the situation in Homs is currently accelerating in its seriousness as a humanitarian issue.

Monday 6 February 2012

Normative bias against ostentation: it's just not cool

It used to be cool to demonstrate wealth: The broadsheets are still alive with articles on superyachts which have attached mini-subs; £100 million London houses; and there is no apparent irony in someone buying an £80 million house being labelled a philanthropist. Bankers who racked up bar-tabs incomprehensible to the average wage earner would make the low-numbered pages of the broadsheets.



Is it cool anymore? Inequality has become very not cool. In the Middle East and North Africa, people are dying to protest against it, and images of them and this continuing protest, regional in scope, national in character, are uploaded to sites such as YouTube and Bambuser. The Western nations are unequal in and of themselves, before we examine how unequal is the distribution of wealth between the North and Global South.

It's not cool to be the one percent of the one percent. Mitt Romney was forced to publish his tax returns. It wasn't cool that he earned so much money yet paid so little tax. The Western politicians are only just catching up. Osama bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have both played the austerity card to attract followers and played it well. President G. W. Bush financed a war by tax cuts for the super-rich; history will judge it as not cool.

But of itself a normative bias, which as we speak is only in its infancy, fragile and susceptible to the whim of larger forces, will not reduce the inequality. Inequality, and ostentation will be hidden, it will be only displayed amongst like-minded individuals, behind gated communities and in playgrounds of the super-rich.

The resistance is mounting. The minimum wage is declining in real terms against rapid rises in food and energy costs. The debt mountain is increasing. Occupy is really only the beginning of some much larger global resistance force seen in the Arab spring, a protest essentially against social inequality under corrupt, self-aggrandizing leaders. As the wealth gap increases and basic services become too expensive, the propensity to violent revolt increases by orders of magnitide. In the UK these squeezed middles had to bail out the financial district. This is the great irony but it points to something very troubling, that the masses, the squeezed middle and below, can create shockwaves of positive or negative impact through their mass action. The internet can coordinate this mass action.

Currently, the affluent pursuit of happiness is not so greatly under threat by the economic climate but we must do everything we can to prevent the situation worsening - austerity, debt reduction, and vastly increased tax rates for the one percent. The bottom percentage who are harsly penalised through taxes then find themselves unable to contribute to the consumer economy. This will never happen to the one percent. A normative perception against ostentatious wealth is important. So be cool.