Tag: United States
Cyberbullying is working, for now
This is the lousy Kim Jong Un death scene from The Interview that apparently caused Sony to cancel release of the film. A second film release, Team America: World Police, has also been cancelled. Kim Jong Un is now deciding which movies Americans can see.
The North Koreans have not been shy about making and distributing their own movies showing destruction in the US, including a nuclear attack:
These are folks who can dish it out but can’t take it. I know what we called them in grade school. The bullying is working for now.
But it is likely to draw some fire. President Obama is said to be looking for a “proportional” response. I suppose the leaking of the death scene may even be part of that, though it need not be. It is inevitable that the entire film, bad though it is rumored to be, will appear online in due course. Cybercommand need do nothing to ensure that.
This seemingly silly incident nevertheless has serious implications:
- Cybertheft of the sort that enabled the North Koreans to embarrass Sony has a very low entry price. A few good hackers and computers plus a decent internet connection suffice.
- It is fairly easy to hide your identity and geographic location when stealing from others’ computers, though the North Koreans seem not to have done a thorough job doing that.
- Threats to attack movie theaters or other public venues are easy to make and hard to disprove or defend against. A single smoke bomb in a theater showing the movie would likely make most of us stay home, never mind a deadly attack.
- The North Koreans are likely to conclude from this incident that cybertheft and intimidation work well against their much more powerful antagonists in the US.
- The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as well as other cyber-capable enemies will likely conclude the same thing.
Our economy is heavily dependent on the internet. On rare occasions I have been separated from both computer and cell phone (neither is allowed in some of the places where I teach). Those days my productivity is cut sharply–it takes me several additional days to catch up. Surely Sony employees are suffering something similar at the moment, as the company tries to figure out how to stop the continuing theft of its emails. The day this happens to the Federal government, the Federal Reserve, the New York Stock Exchange or other more vital institutions our GNP is going to sink like a stone. The same is true for most countries in the world today.
North Korea, Cuba and other countries that have kept the internet at bay are not vulnerable in the same way. Cyber warfare between advanced economies would be very destructive, but there is also inherent deterrence: knowing our own vulnerabilities, we would have to think twice before launching a cyberattack on Russia, for example. Cyber is likely to be more useful to “assymetric” adversaries who don’t use the internet as much as we do.
I’m sure there are better ways to defend against cyberbullies than what we are doing today. But for now, they have the advantage.
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The Cuba saga is far from over
Political responses to President Obama’s Cuba opening have been predictably partisan: most Democrats support it, most Republicans oppose it. Democrats are right that the embargo hasn’t worked, but Republicans are right that this opening will bestow some political legitimacy on an authoritarian regime. All of that is well rehearsed.
Politically, the President is likely to win this round on points. Attitudes in the Cuban American community, and in the general population, have been tilting his way for some time. Marco Rubio may nevertheless gain prominence and conservative support from blocking key aspects of the opening–like the naming of an ambassador and dismantling of the embargo–in Congress. It won’t help in Congress that Cuba continues to harbor American fugitives.
There is still a lot of uncertainty about the political impact of what the President is doing inside Cuba. My own visit there last spring suggested that Cubans are really not sure what they want politically. Most treasure their socialist education and health systems and would like their economic plight eased, but beyond that their aspirations are far from well-articulated. That’s no surprise: they have lived in a tightly controlled one-party system for a long time. Thinking about alternatives has not been encouraged.
The President’s Republican critics are correct when they say it is not clear how his diplomatic and economic opening will lead to political change in Cuba. The Castros have demonstrated that they are not fools. They wouldn’t be doing this if they thought it would bring regime change. The dissident community, which has been unable for more than 50 years to take advantage of the economic pressure the American embargo brought to bear on the Castro regime, wants Western-style human rights and democracy. While they will try to exploit the opportunity, they are not overjoyed with what President Obama has done.
How things turn out will depend on the Cuban people. The dissidents do not seem to have deep roots there, but the regime doesn’t either. The state-controlled part of Cuba’s economy is on its last legs. Government employees are paid a pittance. Lots of people already have second jobs in the more or less private sector, from which they earn 10 times and more than from their nominal government employment. The state is withering away. Its capacity to maintain the health and education systems that Cuban citizens treasure is in doubt.
The government also faces a difficult immediate issue: how to unify the two currencies the country uses. Raul Castro has promised to do this before the end of 2014. The Cuban peso, in which most government salaries are paid, is all but worthless. The CUC, a convertible currency in which most transactions are now conducted, dominates the economy. Presumably the Cuban regime hopes the opening with the US will help it garner hard currency and smooth the transition to a single currency, which will have to be called “Cuban peso” but be valued closer to the CUC. If that process goes awry, Cubans could get very unhappy with their political system very quickly.
It is not only the Cuban regime that would be at risk. The United States can ill afford an economic and political collapse in Cuba that brings another million or more Cubans to Florida. It is in our interest that the transition to democracy happen, but also that it be smooth and not disruptive. President Obama has opened a new chapter, but the saga is far from over.
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Falling off the wagon
I am grateful to Davide Denti and Franklin DeVrieze for this tweet on Saturday:
Davide Denti retweeted
#Russia no longer supports European perspective for#BiH. See footnote in report Peace Implementation Council. Sad. http://www.ohr.int/pic/default.asp?content_id=48910 …
FranklinDeVrieze It is sad, but also good, to have it in writing. Davide adds this:
@FranklinDVrieze@MsElleSandberg@BogdanovskiA and they had the same objection few weeks ago @ UN on the renewal of EUFOR Althea (abstained)
This is no footnote. It is an important development that has long been in the making. Russia has sometimes in the past vacillated between outright support for specific NATO and EU goals in the Balkans (during Yeltsin’s time Russian troops served under US command in Bosnia) and competition (Russian troops seizing Pristina airport). Most of the time it has stood aside and watched while Washington and Brussels pushed Euro-Atlantic integration. It has now gone over to outright hostility.
This has serious implications, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina but possibly also in Serbia. Moscow, which has annexed Crimea and is seeking to carve out a Republika Srpska-like, semi-sovereign entity in eastern Ukraine, has long coddled and financed Milorad Dodik, supporting his maximalist positions.
Now we can expect the Russians to go further in challenging EU efforts to promote reform, which Brussels is trying to intensify. We should also anticipate that Russia may veto the next renewal of the EUFOR Althea peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, or try to extract a price for not doing so. Moscow is anxious to show it is an indispensable superpower, just like the US. Putin figures the best way to prove that is to block what others want to do.
Dodik will be a willing ally to Moscow. He has no interest in EU-promoted reforms, which would likely lead to transparency and accountability contrary to his interests. I am told that at the working level Republika Srpska officials often do cooperate with the Bosnian government in Sarajevo when it comes to technical issues associated with preparing the country for its European obligations. I have my doubts that will continue.
Serbia’s attitude is more uncertain. Moscow is actively courting Belgrade,which remained loyal to the Russian-sponsored South Stream natural gas pipeline up until the day President Putin killed it, despite EU pressure to conform to Brussels’ antagonism to the project. Russians own a large part of the Serbian energy sector. Military cooperation and religious ties are strong. Belgrade loves to portray itself as “non-aligned,” a notion most Americans will have trouble fathoming in the post-Cold War world. In the Serbian lexicon, it no longer means equidistance between two superpower blocks but rather hostility to NATO and the EU. But the political leadership in Belgrade is at least nominally far more committed to EU accession, which it is now negotiating, than Dodik is.
Few in the US will get worked up about this. The Balkans have returned to oblivion in Washington, where everyone would like to be thinking about the Asia Pacific but many find themselves preoccupied with the Middle East. If Serbia wants to volunteer to serve as a Russian satellite, the issue won’t rise above the Deputy Assistant Secretary level in the State Department, where they are likely to c0nclude that little more than continuing to chant about a Euro-Atlantic future for the Balkans can be done about it. Nor is Brussels likely to get too agitated either. Heightening the prospects for EU enlargement is just not something any major players there want these days.
I don’t have any doubt about whether a European perspective for all the Balkans is a good idea. It is the opportunity of a generation. The other countries of the Balkans see it that way and are preparing accordingly. But Bosnia and Serbia could fall off the wagon, with a push from Moscow. It’s their loss if they do.
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The troubles we see
This year’s Council on Foreign Relations Preventive Priorities Survey was published this morning. It annually surveys the globe for a total of 30 Tier 1, 2 and 3 priorities for the United States. Tier 1s have a high or moderate impact on US interests or a high or moderate likelihood (above 50-50). Tier 2s can have low likelihood but high impact on US interests, moderate (50-50) likelihood and moderate impact on US interests, or high likelihood and low impact on US interests. Tier 3s are all the rest. Data is crowdsourced from a gaggle of experts, including me.
We aren’t going to be telling you anything you don’t know this year, but the exercise is still instructive. The two new Tier 1 contingencies are Russian intervention in Ukraine and heightened tensions in Israel/Palestine. A new Tier 2 priority is Kurdish violence within Turkey. I don’t believe I voted for that one. Ebola made it only to Tier 3, as did political unrest in China and possible succession problems in Thailand. I had Ebola higher than that.
Not surprisingly, the top slot (high likelihood and high impact) goes to ISIS. Military confrontation in the South China Sea moved up to Tier 1. Internal instability in Pakistan moved down, as did political instability in Jordan. Six issues fell off the list: conflict in Somalia, a China/India clash, Mali, Democratic Republic of the Congo Bangladesh and conflict between Sudan and South Sudan.
Remaining in Tier 1 are a mass casualty attack on the US homeland (hard to remove that one), a serious cyberattack (that’s likely to be perennial too), a North Korea crisis, and an Israeli attack on Iran. Syria and Afghanistan remain in Tier 2 (I think I had Syria higher than that).
The Greater Middle East looms large in this list. Tier 2 is all Greater Middle East, including Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Turkey and Yemen (in addition to Tier 1 priorities Israel/Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Palestine). That makes 11 out of 30, all in the top two tiers. Saudi monarchy succession is not even mentioned. Nor is Bahrain.
Sub-Saharan Africa makes it only into Tier 3. Latin America and much of Southeast Asia escape mention.
There is a question in my mind whether the exclusively country-by-country approach of this survey makes sense. It is true of course that problems in the Middle East vary from country to country, but there are also some common threads: Islamic extremism, weak and fragile states, exclusionary governance, demographic challenges and economic failure. From a policy response perspective, it may make more sense to focus on those than to try to define “contingencies” country by country. If you really wanted to prevent some of these things from happening, you would surely have to broaden the focus beyond national borders. Russian expansionism into Russian-speaking territories on its periphery might be another more thematic way of defining contingencies.
One of the key factors in foreign policy is entirely missing from this list: domestic American politics and the difficulties it creates for a concerted posture in international affairs. Just to offer a couple of examples: failure to continue to pay Afghanistan’s security sector bills, Congressional passage of new Iran sanctions before the P5+1 negotiations are completed, or a decision by President Obama to abandon entirely support for the Syrian opposition. The survey ignores American “agency” in determining whether contingencies happen, or not. That isn’t the world I live in.
For my Balkans readers: no, you are not on the list, and you haven’t been for a long time so far as I can tell. In fact, it is hard to picture how any contingency today in the Balkans could make it even to Tier 3. That’s the good news. But it also means you should not be looking to Washington for solutions to your problems. Brussels and your own capitals are the places to start.
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Peace Picks December 15-19
- The Escalating Shi’a-Sunni Conflict: Assessing the Role of ISIS | Monday December 15 | 9:30 | The Stimson Center | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Today, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) controls and effectively governs large parts of territory based on a sectarian agenda. By implementing an ideology of religious intolerance, ISIS plays a significant role in deepening the already existing sectarian divide in a region deeply embroiled in conflict. Its appeal namely lies in its ability to offer an alternative to many communities that have felt marginalized and threatened in the past, and more so since the Arab uprisings began. Given its anti-Shi’a agenda, did ISIS capitalize on the conditions in Iraq and the Levant or did it help create them? Does ISIS have the potential to spread to other countries in the region where there is a sectarian problem, such as Lebanon? What is the potential for the US to push back on the ISIS march? Is Washington throwing money at the problem or are US military efforts actually making a difference on the ground? The discussants will address these issues, with a particular focus on Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. The panelists are Joseph Bahout, Visiting Scholar, Middle East Program, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Omar Al-Nidawi, Director for Iraq, Gryphon Partners LLC. The event is moderated by Geneive Abdo, Fellow, Middle East Program, The Stimson Center.
- International Diplomacy and the Ukraine Crisis | Monday December 15 | 9:30 – 10:30 | International Institute for Strategic Studies | To date, international diplomatic efforts to address the Ukraine crisis – the most severe threat to European security since the Cold War – have been episodic and largely unsuccessful. A discussion on the attempts thus far and how they might be improved going forward with three highly experienced negotiators from Russia, the US, and the EU. The discussants are Vladimir Lukin who was the special envoy of the Russian president for the February 21st talks in Kyiv between then-President Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leaders, Richard Burt who serves as managing director at McLarty Associates, where he has led the firm’s work in Europe and Eurasia since 2007 and Michael Leigh who is a Transatlantic Academy Fellow, consultant and senior advisor to the German Marshall Fund.
- Congressional Options and Their Likely Consequences for a Nuclear Deal with Iran | Tuesday December 16 | 1:00 – 2:00 | Rand Corporation | REGISTER TO ATTEND | With nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 now extended beyond the original November 24 deadline, some members of Congress might now attempt to intervene legislatively. Congressional action could either help or hinder the implementation of whatever deal may be reached. What options are available to Congress, and what are the likely consequences of each for the United States? The talk is with analyst Larry Hanauer as he identifies and assesses eight potential courses of action that Congress could take that might either facilitate, hinder, or block implementation of a nuclear deal.
- The State and Future of Egypt’s Islamists | Thursday December 18 | 12:00 – 1:00 | Hudson Institute | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Who are Egypt’s Islamists? What are the internal dynamics among Islamism’s various individual and collective constituents? How have the dramatic political developments in Egypt over the past four years affected the country’s Islamists, and what are their future prospects? Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Samuel Tadros’s two-year long study of Egyptian Islamism has resulted in two landmark reports. The first, Mapping Egyptian Islamism, profiles 128 currents, groups, and individuals that form the complex Egyptian Islamist scene. The second, Islamist vs. Islamist: The Theologico-Political Questions, examines the internal dynamics of Islamism in terms of the relationships among its leading figures and major tendencies, and their disagreements on key theological and political questions. The discussion will surround the future of Egypt’s Islamists and Tadros’s two new reports featuring Mokhtar Awad of the Center for American Progress, William McCants of the Brookings Institution, and Eric Trager of the Washington Institute. Samuel Tadros will moderate the discussion.
- Bordering on Terrorism: Turkey’s Syria Policy and the Rise of the Islamic State | Friday December 19 | 9:30 – 11:00 | Foundation for Defense of Democracies | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Southeastern Turkey has become a hub for terror finance, arms smuggling, illegal oil sales, and the flow of fighters to extremist groups in Syria including the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra. Ankara has made explicit that it supports the arming of Syrian rebels, although whether Ankara is directly assisting jihadist groups remains unclear. Nevertheless, Turkey’s reluctance to cooperate with the international coalition acting against the Islamic State has undermined domestic stability, threatened the country’s economy and placed it on a collision course with the United States. Should Washington, therefore, seek to persuade Ankara to confront extremism at home and its neighborhood? And if Turkey refuses, should there be implications for its NATO membership? A conversation with Tony Badran, Jamie Dettmer, and Jonathan Schanzer.
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Lessons learned and forgotten
Roy Gutman, currently serving with distinction in Istanbul as McClatchy bureau chief for the Middle East, has kindly given me permission to publish this longer than usual post. Read and weep.
Until recently, few Americans had even heard of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS). But a new poll just out shows that 70 per cent of the population view ISIS as the number one threat to the United States. From nothing to 70 per cent in six months. What’s behind the phenomenon of the Islamic State? Who’s to blame? What do you do about it?
My premise is that the Islamic State did not spring from nowhere. It is the product of five wars over 35 years, three of which took place in Afghanistan; there was one long war in Iraq and we’re now three years into war in Syria. A major contributor to its rise is us, the United States, and how we’ve dealt with those wars.
We need to go back 25 years to 1989. That astonishing year began with the Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in February, and ended with the opening of the Berlin Wall and the Czech revolution. The Soviet Empire collapsed, and a new era began with one superpower and no defined order about how to handle crisis. What we’ve seen since then is a good deal of disorder and, with some notable exceptions, flawed responses to it. Possibly it’s because many of the crises occurred in countries that had been in the Russian orbit or non-aligned.
Afghanistan ushered in the post-cold war era, and the US response there set a pattern. The crisis is now in its 35th year. It has produced not just tragedy and threat, indeed radical modern Islam got its start there — but lessons as well. In my book, now out in a second edition (How We Missed the Story: Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and the Hijacking of Afghanistan), I documented well over 50 policy decisions that led to the continuing crisis. I’ll choose just 10 lessons that should have been learned. They weren’t, as we are seeing in Syria today.
Ten lessons Read more
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