Better the devil you know?

Stability versus Democracy

'More portentously, the crisis places Western governments in an awkward dilemma. The apparent mass movement for democracy now sweeping the region, ousting dictators and offering many people their only taste of freedom after decades of home-grown and colonial oppression, has been welcomed by Western leaders. Yet those very  movements threaten the prosperity and economic stability of the West in a way that has not been seen for decades.'
-- Sean o'Grady, 'Concerns over oil supply cause spike in prices as uprising hits exports', The Independent

'Artists are tricky fellows sir, forever reshaping the world according to some design of their own'

-- Jonathan Strange in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

Analysts are rushing to answer the question that everybody is asking: what will Kate Middleton's wedding dress look like? Secondary considerations are being given to a seemingly lesser moment in history, the popular uprisings in the Maghreb and Middle East: what form of government will emerge from the toppled autocracies? The BBC asked the question to a host of luminaries on Newsnight. The answer was that autocracies across the Middle East are different flavours of the same product, so one cannot be sure what beasts will emerge because they are dependent upon so many factors. If there is one outcome hoped for from these events, it's probably that the science should be dropped from the field of political science. The relief that these binary battles between Islamist groups and political strongmen now appear to have been offset by the popular protest is palpable. 'It's unprecedented that the people could topple a president,' mused Vivian Ibrahim. John Simpson at least invoked history when he called it '1989' for the Middle East (though he cut something of a sad figure, holed up in the very Eastern tip of Libya as Gaddafi decreed that any member of the press travelling without authorisation in the country would be treated as an al-Qaeda operative).


Many people have lost and will lose their lives in these uprisings and at heart they were fought out because of a rejection of regimes rather than an embrace of particular modes of government. At the end, there will still be demographically bottom heavy populations with large scale unemployment. I'm not sure how democracy as a form of government solves these particular issues - it might address grievances, but never really produce a suitable answer.  Democracy relies upon the favour of the majority of the population to elect an official to office and to relect them. As such, the system panders to short term interests - I don't elect people because of what they might enact in office that might help me ten years down the line. I want beneficial policies and I want them now. Little forward thinking can be done. If you try it you get in trouble. Just ask Obama. The road ahead to stability in these countries may be a long and tortuous one.  

Where do the popular protestors' sympathies lie? Like it or not, the West will be an onlooker: meddling will be interchangeable with assistance. The West sponsored the autocracies. It's easier to do business with a single despot than with a coalition of disparate parties, stillborn in the birth pangs of an aborted democracy. Vali Nasr's views, influential as he is within the White House, must be gaining momentum. He sees as much as anyone, or has seen - which is vital in that his theories are not just reactionary to current events - a Muslim Third Way: the rise of a liberal bourgeoisie that rejects Islamist anger and autocratic injustice but marries a moderate Islam to progressive secularism. Which country do the majority on the Arab Street admire most? Turkey - it has embraced Western values without kowtowing to it. Western media platforms have enabled this uprising from the Arab Street, but this is not a wholehearted embrace of the West, in fact it is more likely, from PEW global polls, that an apathetic rejection of the West will develop. Egypt, for example, is one of the minority nations in which there is more support for Islamists than modernisers. 

Fukuyama is back in fashion and so he should be: a thirst for recognition lies at the heart of this new Arab voice and a desire for economic wealth. Denied the minimum wealth necessary for social development (Young men are often too poor to marry) and afforded a coagulating, free tool in social networking sites, emboldened by the spotlight of local and world media firmly on them, a rebellion developed. Schama lamented the 'Western presumptiousness' that Arabs could not engage in democracy, presumably seeing these successful rebellions as the precursors to transparent government. But one question remains - which unit now exercises the monopoly on violence? In Egypt it is the army - there has been no coagulating opposition figure emerge. In Bahrain, with three ministers recently sacked, it is still the government who control the military and police. In Yemen, there has always been a decentralised tribal structure. In Libya, there is apparently a bloody stand-off between opposition forces and Gaddafi's mercenary forces around Tripoli. And for the autocracies left standing? Wednesday in Saudi Arabia was instructive - King Abudulla's return to the country after rehabilitation for his back coincided with a $36billion public spending package. Silent civilian appeasement is in. 

It's theatre, but this time around, we only get to watch. And on that note, the last word must go to Porter, who observes with irony that, 'The world must be counting on us [the West], surely? Without us, progress and liberation is just not possible. Beneath the howls of outrage that our governments are not embracing the revolutions enthusiastically enough, there is often an assumption that the ‘Arab street’ just couldn’t do it without us. In this egocentric moment, we see combined the self-exaltation of the Atlantic world, and the self-regard of the Facebook generation.' 

Technology (2)

Hot War in Cyberspace


The problem with the recent British Defence document, the Strategic Defence and Security Review is that it highlighted a lot of solutions without ever really defining any problems. There was no strategy and no real idea of what problems that British realm might face in the future. This idea of streamlining forces whilst increasing the sophistication of the equipment has been at the heart of the American-led Revolution in Military Affairs - put succinctly, the idea that increasingly sophisticated technology will lead to precision warfare, eliminating collateral damage and deterring potential adversaries because of the intelligences of the military systems.  


This has been the U.S. approach to combat systems for a generation. And it isn't just about policy - the military-industrial base that Eisenhower so famously warned of is an omnipotent entity - it powers the U.S. economy. Elected officials have a proportion of their electorate that are either military or work for defence-related companies. As such, any attempt to downsize the military, to streamline by reducing output, damages the economy and damages reelection. This is the inherent problem for democracy in that it panders to short-term considerations. The U.S. has created technologically cutting edge systems without ever really asking what military arena they could realistically be employed in - hence William Lind's fashionable counterwork on 'fourth generation' warfare.  


There is a telling statistic now: 95% of all the U.S. military's communications pass through civilian channels (Berkowitz, B. 'Warfare in the Information Age' in Arquilla and Ronfeldt eds. 'In Athena's Camp', pp.141-74). The U.S. has driven military evolution as simply the need to increase the technological edge to its weapons, and this increasing sophistication points to a massive vulnerability - cyberwarfare. 


The definition of cyberwar is difficult, and there is an ambiguity since it is fought in both military and civilian domains. The responder spheres hence overlap, ensuring conflict. If a virus shuts down the electricity at a hospital and people die, is this a hot war - in death by proxy, can pixels be met by military reprisals? How can you be certain if the actor involved is a state or non-state actor? What role thus can national boundaries ever play in this realm? 


Cyberwarfare involves the rise of mezzanine players - non-state actors ensconced within national boundaries - organized crime, solo hackers.  One recent study concluded vaguely that whilst '300 world-class individuals' are added annually to the UK in terms of people with the ability to commit cyberwarfare, 25 000 are added annually of 'world class' level ability to commit cyberattacks in China. They are highly paid, highly motivated - and part of organized crime. Cybersecurity is now a main issue in military arenas. Witness the military conference on cybersecurity in London, January followed by the Munich Security Conference in February, annual event since 1962, first time that cybersecurity had been foregrounded in the conference. Ten of the 13 Global Internet routers are in the United States, making it the playground of choice for anarchists and competitive hackers. Moreover, the increasing level of sophistication (stuxnet made people sit up across the globe) means that your own PCs could aid cyberwarfare, unwittingly. Your PC could already have picked a side in a battle not yet fought. 









More on RMA:
Krepinevich (1994) 'Cavalry to Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolutions', National Interest
Cohen, E. (1996) 'A Revolution in Warfare', Foreign Affairs
Cordesman, A. 'A Lesson in Transforming Warfare', FT, 18 Feb, 2005
Freedman, L (1998) Revolution in Strategic Affairs, Adelphi Paper 318, IISS

Iran, Egypt as Insurgency - Fighting for a Contested Space

Egypt


'In essence, the contest in insurgencies, as Mao understood, was for the support of the 'people' - the 'sea' in which both guerillas and security forces operate. In insurgency warfare whichever protagonist gains the support of the people is the one who will emerge victorious... When the forces countering an insurgency make the people feel safe, and when they can guarantee their security and a path to a better future [my italics], then they will gain the people's support, and ultimately they will win. If this does not happen, then the 'people' will be forced to support those that they fear - the insurgents. The first point here is that the 'people' will only feel confident with the security [and this includes economic and legalistic security, the latter enshrined by a constitution] provided by the proper authorities [my italics] when they see that the forces of that authority are close and available. If they are, then the authority tends to be accepted at the legitimate power, and the 'people' will be attracted to that power like moths to a flame.'
-- Rod Thornton, Asymmetric Warfare, 2007


What happened in Egypt? A constitution that limited the ability of opposition movements to function in the legitimate apparatus of government has been torn up. A new constitution will be written; unsaid at this time is the notion that this will allow legitimate position/opposition, but democracy is an all-or-nothing venture. You either have democracy or you do not have democracy. 


The army have maintained their monopoly on violence. It was never in question. Since 1952 they have assumed de facto leadership in the country - Nasser, Sadat (a member of the Free Officers club from the 1952 coup), Mubharak all came from the ranks of the military. U.S. aid abets the military machine (the fifth largest military exports to any nation), and with 448 000 military personnel, is the 11th largest army in the world with a reserve of nearly 400 000 again that makes the percentage employed in the armed forces as a percentage of the labour force (males aged 15-49) approximately 3.5%, the fifteenth largest percentage in the world. The military are accorded privileged status. With a lack of visible leadership in the opposition protests, it has been left to high ranking military officials to precipitate the transition authority. Israel has already indicated that it might be able to 'work with' Field Marshal Tantawi.


Don't be fooled then by media portrayals of the events. The army were called in when the police lost the ability to prosecute the state's monopoly on violence. The army prosecuted. Reports of arrests and torture by the army on civilians abound and many protestors are still missing.The army will not have the monopoly on violence rested from them. What matters then is that the concerns of the population are addressed - and that main concern is the economy, which has deprived many civilians of basic social trappings. 


When Schopenhaeur wrote that men take the limits of their field of vision for the limits of the world, he wasn't discussing the world media but it would have had relevance. The media has focused, rightly, on the cities, but Egypt is a nation. In the periphery, the protestors are seen by many as anarchists and the police have continued, in these areas to implement the rule of law. 


Iran
The planned day of solidarity with Egypt, scheduled for the 14th February by  Mir Hussein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi (both now under house arrest) was likely to be a focal point for renewed protests against the ruling establishment. This is not about economics, this is about Fukuyama's other principle - recognition. Similar riots in 2009, known as the Green Revolution (or Twitter Revolution after the social network of choice), were brutally crushed, and since the monopoly on violence remains with the theocracy as does the ability to restrict global media access (the latter being orders of magnitude higher than in Egypt), caution should be the watchword. A bloodbath could ensue or at least the disappearance of a great many activists in the capital. So efficient were the authorities in quelling the Green Revolution that they videotaped large areas of the protests so as to imprison certain ringleaders when they had been identified at a later date. It is also rumoured that some 5000 members of Hizbollah were drafted into the capital to contest the protestors' physical spaces. Figures, general at best, give Monday's protestors at 100, 000, perhaps a third of the number of protestors at the height of the Twitter 'Revolution'. 

Logo employed by demonstrators during the 2009 Twitter Revolution

That the words are in English not Farsi suggests an attempt to engage world media

When examining media reports in the coming days - on Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Algeria, Iran inter alia, envisage this contested space as insurgency, with all its commensurate implications, and examine the dynamic of the state's monopoly on violence and the protestors as the insurgents fighting for the support of the people. 


Further [Internet activity in Iran has been disrupted]:


Freegate: Freeware software used to open proxies (circumvent firewalls) 


@tehranbureau  - best reporting from the ground in Tehran (thanks to Alex Strick for this twitter feed)


www.kaleme.org - Mir Hussein Mousavi's Official Website


www.en-hrana.org - Human Rights Organization

Guardian UK's page that maintains a record of the dead and detained from the Green Revolution 

'Theocracy and its Discontents', Fareed Zakaria. 2009 article detailing the current status quo in Tehran


'Iran's Long Reach: Iran as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World', Susanne Maloney, USIP. Brilliant work on Iranian Theocracy, written before the 2009 Green Revolution


'The Islamic Republic of Iran: Is it Really?" Shaffer, in Shaffer ed. 'The Limits of Culture: Islam and Foreign Policy', MIT Press

Technology (1)

This morning the U.S. published its National Military Strategy (NMS) for 2011 which called for 'full-spectrum' deployment of U.S. power and an imperceptible nod to the rise of soft power in countering foreign aggression, in all its forms. This week also, the first in a new generation of drones, this one the X-47B (Northrop Grumman), had its test flight. 


Drones represent another step level development in the American-led Revolution in Military Affairs, a strategic initiative that was first proposed by Russian military chiefs, until they rapidly ran out of money at the end of the Cold War [for an overview of the development in this thought see Gregory, D. (2010) 'War and peace', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 35, pp.154-186]. The technology in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is advanced - you've seen the Chinese trumpet their stealth fighter to the media, but their drones (they do have some) are of a less impressive functionality. The NMS is particularly forceful in its language against China - and with this technological advantage, it is easy to see why Mullen, of the Joint Chiefs, can still beat his drum. For further information on drones see the excellent dronewars blog. The MOD has thus far acquired three Reapers and has funded its own Taranis project with test flights due to start this year. 


Further to my discussion previous on the U.S. government voting on an internet kill switch and how to work hot wars in cyberspace, at the Munich Security Conference this coming Friday, a "Geneva Convention" for the internet is to be discussed. The media will run with all the cyberspace stories from the conference, so expect 'security in the cloud' to be the hot topic in the weeks to come.