Tag: Iran
Don’t forget Hezbollah
Here is the draft of the State Department dissent message on Syria, on which the New York Times based its coverage yesterday. So far as I can tell the final version is not publicly available, but this draft is polished. The argument is basically that the US has sufficient moral and strategic reason to attack Syrian government forces with stand-off weapons with the goal of getting President Asad to abide by the internationally mandated cessation of hostilities and initiate serious negotiations on a political transition, as required by the Geneva I communique and numerous subsequent international decisions. The dissent memo admits some downsides: a deterioration of relations with Russia and possible “second order” effects.
Those downsides require more consideration. There is no international mandate to attack Syrian government forces. Intervention in this case would in that sense have even less multilateral sanction than the NATO attack on Qaddafi’s forces in Libya, where there was a UN Security Council mandate, albeit one that authorized “all necessary means” to save civilians rather than to change the regime. Asad has not directly attacked the US, even if his reaction to Syria’s internal rebellion has created conditions that are inimical to US interests by attracting extremists and undermining stability in neighboring countries.
The Russia angle is also daunting. Moscow may well react by intensifying its attacks on the opposition forces the US supports, who are already targeted by Russian warplanes. Unilateral US intervention against Syrian government forces would also help Moscow to argue it is doing no worse in Ukraine, where it supports opposition forces behind a thin veil of denials that its forces are directly involved. The US is not ready to respond in kind to Russian escalation in Ukraine, if only because the European allies would not want it. Kiev might be the unintended victim of US escalation in Syria.
Second order effects could also include loss of European, Turkish and Jordanian support, because of an increased refugee flow out of Syria, as well as increased Iranian support for the Houthi rebellion in Yemen, destabilization of Bahrain and Shia militias in Iraq. Greater chaos in Syria could also help ISIS to revive its flagging fortunes and al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra to pursue its fight against the Syrian government.
These downsides are all too real, but so is the current situation: Russia, the Syrian government, Iran and Hezbollah are making mincemeat of the US-supported Syrian opposition while more extremist forces are gaining momentum. President Obama is reluctant to attack sovereign states that have not attacked the US directly without an international mandate of some sort. That is understandable. But doing nothing military to respond to a deteriorating situation is a decision too, one with real and unfortunately burgeoning negative consequences for US interests.
Hezbollah is the way out of this quandary. It is not a state. It is a designated terrorist group that has killed hundreds of Americans, and many others as well. The Americans say they are fighting terrorist groups in Syria. Why not Hezbollah? Its ground forces there have become increasingly important to the Syrian government’s cause. Getting Hezbollah out of the fight would arguably have as much impact on the military balance as strikes on the Syrian army, which is already a declining and demoralized force.
Washington need not start with military action. It could lead with diplomacy, telling Moscow and Tehran that we want Hezbollah to leave Syria tout de suite. If it fails to leave by a date certain, we could then strip it of its immunity and treat it like the other terrorist groups in Syria. Moscow might even welcome such a move, since Hezbollah efforts in Syria strengthen Iran’s hold, not Russia’s.
Tehran would be furious, claiming Hezbollah is in Syria at the request of its legitimate government. Hezbollah would likely try to strike US, Israeli or even Jewish targets in the region or beyond. It has managed in the past to murder Jews as far away as Argentina. Doing so would confirm the thesis that Hezbollah is a terrorist group and redouble the need to act decisively against it.
No suggestions for what to do or not do in Syria are simple. The situation has gotten so fraught that any proposition will have complicated and unpredictable consequences. But the State Department dissenters missed an opportunity to duck some of the President’s objections and strengthen their own argument by focusing on a terrorist group, rather than the regime’s own forces. Don’t forget Hezbollah.
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Hard questions, difficult answers
Murdered yesterday, Jo Cox gave this last speech in Parliament on Syria (via @ThomasPierret):
Would that we could all lead lives that guarantee we leave behind such eloquent, upstanding memorials!
I can’t match that, but my readers do ask hard questions about the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Here are a few, with answers:
Q: Why do the Russians back Assad?
A: Lots of people more knowledgeable than I am about Russia have tried to answer this one. Most take seriously Moscow’s frequent statements that they are not wedded to Assad personally but want an orderly and legitimate transition in Damascus, not abrupt regime change.
Certainly they don’t want regime change, but I’ve seen no evidence the rest of that summary is true. Now that they have doubled down on Assad by joining the fight last fall, the Russians have in fact welded, if not wedded, themselves to Assad or some proxy for him. There is no conceivable successor regime that would be even half as friendly to Russian interests.
Moscow’s tactical gains through its air attacks have guaranteed it eventual strategic defeat in Syria, where the overwhelming majority of the more than 60% of the pre-war population that was Sunni will be forever hostile to Russia.
Q: How about the Iranians?
A: Iran has been 100% committed to Assad from the get-go. They need Syria to maintain their pipeline of arms shipments to Hezbollah in Lebanon, who are Iran’s front-line troops in the confrontation with Israel. Tehran cannot rely on access to Beirut’s airport, and Syria provides strategic depth to Hezbollah.
Iranian strategic defeat is even more certain than the Russian loss of Syria. I would be the first to stand up against retaliation by Sunnis against Shia and Alawites, but the odds of its happening eventually are high.
Q: Why don’t we just go in there any finish off the Islamic State?
A: In some alternate universe where George W. Bush is still president, I suppose we might do that. But the risks of deploying US ground troops to the front lines to fight ISIS are significant. Are we prepared to see 100 American soldiers captured and shot in the back of the head or burned alive? How about 500? Or a thousand? ISIS is significantly more virulent and brutal than even its predecessor, the Islamic State in Iraq during the 2000s.
There is also the “day after” problem. The key question once ISIS is defeated is how the territory it once controlled will be stabilized and governed. Without a solution to that, we can expect ISIS (or something worse) to return. The US didn’t do well as an occupier in Iraq in 2003. How well would we do in Syria or Iraq in 2016? Are we prepared to deploy several hundred thousand troops for years to try to make sure things come out right? And pay perhaps another 500 billion or a trillion dollars for reconstruction?
Q: What’s the solution?
A: I don’t know. The last five years of war have made everything more difficult than it might have been in those first six months of peaceful demonstrations, but the clock can’t be turned back.
There are two propositions I find somewhat appealing now.
One is for the US to extend its war on terrorists in Syria, which in practice now targets only the Sunni variety, to Hezbollah, which is a Shia non-state actor. The first step would be telling the Iranians that Hezbollah must leave Syria. We’d have to be prepared to back that up with air strikes. Getting rid of Hezbollah would significantly affect the military balance in Syria, raise the risks to Russia and Iran, and increase the odds of a negotiated outcome.
The second somewhat appealing idea is creation of safe areas for the non-extremist Syrian opposition to govern, one in the north and one in the south. This would give the mostly Arab opposition an opportunity to prove itself a serious competitor to the regime in dealing with the requirements of Syria’s citizens, as the Kurds have begun to do along the northern border with Turkey. Doing this would entail both protecting the safe areas from the air and providing the opposition with the means to protect themselves on the ground, as we already do with the Kurds.
Neither of these propositions is a slam dunk. The first would likely lead to Hezbollah retaliation against American or allies assets somewhere in the region. The second, safe areas, is an inherently difficult operation that provides the regime, the Russians and the Iranians with target-rich environments they would no doubt attack. Safe areas have more often failed (Bosnia) than succeeded (Iraqi Kurdistan).
Q: What do you think of the State Department dissent message urging air attacks on Syrian government forces?
A: I might agree with its overall thrust, as it appears based on the notion that the Russians won’t help and we have to do something to rebalance the military equation. But I’ll need to see a full text before commenting.
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Peace picks June 13 – June 17
- Authoritarian Resilience and Revision after the Arab Uprisings. Monday, June 13. 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Register to attend. Five years after the 2011 uprisings, authoritarianism remains a deeply embedded feature of the Arab state system. Countries in the region are caught between the competing impulses of fragmentation and two equally unsustainable authoritarian visions—that of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or classic autocratic regimes. Robert Worth and Joseph Sassoon will discuss these dynamics, sharing from their recent books. Carnegie’s Frederic Wehrey will moderate. Following the discussion, copies of the book will be available for sale with signing by the authors. Joseph Sassoon is an associate professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and is the author of Anatomy of Authoritarianism in the Arab Republics. Robert Worth writes for the New York Times Magazine and is the author of A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil from Tahrir Square to ISIS. Frederic Wehrey is a senior associate in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
- Cascading Conflicts: U.S. Policy on Turkey, Syria, and the Kurds. Tuesday, June 14. 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM. Bipartisan Policy Center. Register to attend. In the fight against ISIS, U.S. policymakers have been increasingly confounded by the fact that two crucial allies, Turkey and the Kurds, are locked in a violent conflict on both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border. While Washington’s plans for defeating ISIS rely on airbases in Turkey and Kurdish troops in Syria, the Turkish government continues to insist that Washington’s Syrian Kurdish partners are no different from the Kurdish terrorists against which it is fighting at home. In the absence of a more effective U.S. plan for addressing the situation, Turkey’s domestic conflict now threatens to not only undermine the war against ISIS but also destabilize Turkey, damage U.S.-Turkish relations, and prolong the Syrian conflict. Join the Bipartisan Policy Center for an expert panel discussion that will address the evolving relationship among Turkey, Syria and the Kurds, with a focus on the implications for U.S.-Turkish relations and U.S. policy in Syria. As an already complicated situation risks causing a major crisis between Washington and its allies, understanding the dynamics has become more important than ever. Panelists: Eric Edelman, Co-Chair, BPC’s Turkey Initiative, Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. Aliza Marcus, Author, Blood and Belief. Ceng Sagnic, Junior Researcher, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies. Amberin Zaman, Public Policy Fellow, Wilson Institute. Moderated by:Ishaan Tharoor, Reporter, The Washington Post.
- Youth, Peace and Security: New Global Perspectives. Tuesday, June 14. 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM. U.S. Institute of Peace. Register to attend. Today’s generation of youth, at 1.8 billion, is the largest the world has ever known. Many of these youth are living in countries plagued by violent conflict and extremism, such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. The goal of SCR 2250 is to recognize youth as partners for peace rather than solely viewing young people as perpetrators of violence—a shift in mindset that responds to the call to action of 11,000 young peacebuilders in the Amman Youth Declaration. The resolution, sponsored by the Government of Jordan, is a direct follow-up to the Global Forum on Youth, Peace and Security held in August 2015, as well as the Security Council’s Open Debate on the Role of Youth in Countering Violent Extremism and Promoting Peace held in April 2015. Join USIP and the Interagency Working Group on Youth and Peacebuilding for a discussion on SCR 2250 with the U.N. Secretary-General’s Envoy for Youth H.E. Ahmad Alhendawi of Jordan, young leaders from countries affected by violent extremism and armed conflict, and other experts. Speakers Include: Manal Omar, Associate Vice President, Center for Middle East and Africa , U.S. Institute of Peace; H.E. Dina Kawar, Permanent Representative of Jordan to the United Nations; H.E. Ahmad Alhendawi, United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth; Saji Prelis, Co-chair of the Inter-agency Working Group on Youth and Peacebuilding, Search for Common Ground; Soukaina Hamia, Youth Peacebuilder, Deputy Director of Sidi Moumen Cultural Center of Casablanca, Morocco; Saba Ismail, Youth Peacebuilder, Executive Director of Aware Girls, Representative of the United Network of Young Peacebuilders (UNOYP); Victoria Ibiwoye, Youth Peacebuilder, Founder of One African Child of Lagos, Nigeria; and Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support.
- The Economic Decline of Egypt after the 2011 Uprising. Wednesday, June 15. 1:00 PM. The Atlantic Council. Register to attend. Five years after the 2011 revolution, Egypt’s economy is floundering and remains far from recovery. Successive Egyptian governments since 2011 have struggled to develop a vision for a new economic model for Egypt, while simultaneously implementing populist policies to appease the immediate demand of the public. This lecture is also the launch of the Rafik Hariri Center’s Mohsin Khan and Elissa Miller’s new report, “The Economic Decline of Egypt after the 2011 Uprising,” and a discussion on the trajectory of Egypt’s economy since 2011 and what the current Egyptian government should do to arrest the economy’s downward slide. A discussion with: Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi, Former Prime Minister, Arab Republic of Egypt; Executive Director, International Monetary Fund; Caroline Freund, Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics; Mohsin Khan, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Atlantic Council; and Mirette F. Mabrouk, Deputy Director & Director of Research and Programs, Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Atlantic Council. Introduction by: The Hon. Frederic C. Hof, Director, Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Atlantic Council.
- Desert Storm after 25 years: Confronting the exposures of modern warfare. Wednesday, June 16. 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM. SEIU Building. Register to attend. By most metrics, the 1991 Gulf War, also known as Operation Desert Storm, was a huge and rapid success for the United States and its allies. The mission of defeating Iraq’s army, which invaded Kuwait the year prior, was done swiftly and decisively. However, the war’s impact on soldiers who fought in it was lasting. Over 650,000 American men and women served in the conflict, and many came home with symptoms including insomnia, respiratory disorders, memory issues and others attributed to a variety of exposures – “Gulf War Illness.” On June 16, the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at Brookings and Georgetown University Medical Center will co-host a discussion on Desert Storm, its veterans, and how they are faring today. Representative Mike Coffman (R-Col.), the only member of Congress to serve in both Gulf wars, will deliver an opening address before joining Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at Brookings, for a moderated discussion. Joel Kupersmith, former head of the Office of Research and Development of the Department of Veterans Affairs, will convene a follow-on panel with Carolyn Clancy, deputy under secretary for health for organizational excellence at the Department of Veterans Affairs; Adrian Atizado, deputy national legislative director at Disabled American Veterans; and James Baraniuk, professor of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center. Following discussion, the panelists will take audience questions.
- Can the US Work with Iran: Challenges and Opportunities. Thursday, June 16. 9:00 AM. The Atlantic Council. Register to attend. Nearly a year after the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany signed a landmark nuclear deal with Iran and nearly six months after the agreement was implemented, the nuclear aspects of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) appear to working smoothly. But other challenges potentially imperil the agreement. There are questions about whether the JCPOA can serve as a template for additional regional and international cooperation or whether domestic politics in the US and Iran and Iran’s continuing difficulties re-entering the global financial system will put those opportunities out of reach for the foreseeable future. To discuss these vital issues, the Atlantic Council’s Future of Iran Initiative and the Iran Project invite you to a half-day symposium.
9:00 a.m. – The progress and problems of sanctions relief
Featuring: Christopher Backemeyer, principal deputy coordinator for sanctions policy at the Department of State, Teresa Archer Pratas, deputy head of the sanctions divisions at the European External Action Service, andGeorge Kleinfeld, a sanctions expert at the law firm Clifford Chance, and moderated by Elizabeth Rosenberg, director of the Energy, Economics, and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.
10:15 a.m. – The JCPOA’s effects on US-Iran relations
Featuring: Suzanne DiMaggio, director of the US-Iran Initiative at New America, Suzanne Maloney, deputy director of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution and a senior fellow in the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy and Energy Security and Climate Initiative, and Negar Mortazavi, an Iranian-American journalist and analyst, and moderated by William Luers, director of the Iran Project.
11:30 a.m. – The impact of the JCPOA on Iran’s role in regional conflicts
Featuring: Ellen Laipson, a senior fellow and president emeritus of the Stimson Center and former deputy chair of the National Intelligence Council, J. Matthew McInnis, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former senior analyst in the US Department of Defense and Intelligence Community, and Bruce Riedel, director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution and a former senior director for the Near East and South Asia on the National Security Council. Barbara Slavin, acting director of the Future of Iran Initiative, will moderate.
12:30 p.m.– Keynote by Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor for strategic communications, on the legacy of the JCPOA. Stephen Heintz , president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, will introduce and moderate.
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Better than surrender
Colleagues at RAND have updated their peace proposal for Syria. This should be taken seriously, both because Jim Dobbins, Phil Gordon and Jeffrey Martini are sharp guys and because their previous version turned out to be prescient, or maybe just reflective of Administration thinking before the recent, now mostly lamented, cessation of hostilities. They want to put aside the difficult political question of transition, including the fate of Bashar al Assad, to focus on reducing the violence and extending the cessation of hostilities.
What they’ve done this time is to suggest four different ways in which decentralization could be implemented with Bashar al Assad still in place: one based on existing legislation, a second based on that plus additional taxing and security authority, a third acknowledges existing Kurdish autonomy, and a fourth that extends that autonomy to opposition and government controlled areas, more or less along the lines of their previous proposal. Wisely dropped from their original proposal is the ethnic/sectarian definition of “safe” zones, with the exception of the de facto majority Kurdish area along Syria’s northern border with Turkey.
All of this is perfectly reasonable as an outline of what might happen if the war continues. It just isn’t going to be possible for Assad to re-establish control over all of Syria. Decentralization is unquestionably part of the solution, as it is in Yemen, Libya and Iraq. The opposition already has local governing structures in northern and southern Syria, the Kurds are governing their “cantons” and ISIS unfortunately administers the territory it controls.
But as a proposal that keeps Bashar al Assad in place it looks distinctly like surrender. Assad himself yesterday made clear that he intends to reconquer all of Syria:
There is no sign that he would accept a peace that includes decentralization along any of the lines RAND recommends, even the one based on existing legislation. Nor is there any sign that the Russians and Iranians would compel him to do so. To the contrary: they are doubling and tripling down on their support for Assad’s offensives, most notably right now against Aleppo and Raqqa.
Nor is there any sign that the peacekeeping forces RAND mumbles quietly are necessary in both the original and updated version of its peace plan are going to be available. Even the Iranians and Russians are unlikely to deploy the tens of thousands required on the ground in Syria. Much less so the Qataris, Saudis, Jordanians or even the Turks. Years ago, the UN had polled more traditional troop providing countries and had identified 18,000 that might be made available. Today that number has certainly shrunk. A country the size of Syria would require well over 100,000 by the usual peacekeeping formulas.
The value of this second version of the RAND proposal lies in its careful attention to the pros and cons of different forms of decentralization. Assad is staying, but he won’t be able to achieve his territorial goal. The Americans, whose one real asset in Syria is the local governing structures they have supported, should be thinking about decentralization not with Assad, because he just won’t buy it, but despite Assad. Providing the security resources required to protect local governing structures, and weaving them together into a viable alternative to the regime, is a better plan than the surrender RAND is advocating.
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Trump’s defeat
With Hillary Clinton clinching the Democratic nomination, it is time to consider the far more likely scenario: that she will win the November election, become the first Madame President, and return to the White House in January. What are the implications for America and its foreign policy?
Trump’s defeat, the third in a row for Republicans, will leave the party weakened and possibly divided. It could well lose control of the Senate if not the House. Blame for this will be heaped on those who backed Trump, a blatant racist, misogynist and xenophobe. Balancing acts like this one will look ridiculous in the aftermath of an electoral defeat:
Those who did not support Trump will try to resurrect the direction the party thought it had chosen after the 2012 election: towards becoming more inclusive rather than less. That will be a hard sell once more than 70% of Hispanics (and 90% of African Americans), similar percentages of gas and lesbians, and a majority of women have chosen Clinton. Some of the defeated will try to launch a new party or join the Libertarians. Diehard Trumpies will head off into the white supremacist/neo-Nazi corner of American politics.
The Democrats will seek to exploit their moment of triumph. I imagine top of their priorities will be “comprehensive” immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people. This would solidify their Hispanic support. I doubt Clinton will reverse her position on the Transpacific Trade Partnership (TTP), but she might well quietly encourage Barack Obama to get it done in the lame duck Congress, before she is sworn in, with some improvements. I hope she will back the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which raises fewer hackles that TTP.
Clinton will want to reassure America’s allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. She will look for ways to sound and act tougher on the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, Russia, Iran and China, which have each taken advantage of Obama’s retrenchment from the over-extension of the Bush 43 presidency to press the envelope on what Washington will tolerate. She will maintain the nuclear deal with Iran and likely try to follow a similar model with North Korea. She opt for a no-fly zone in northern or southern Syria, hoping to stop at that.
Clinton will try to sustain Washington’s tightened relationship with India, Vietnam and other Asian powers as well as ongoing moves towards democracy and free market economies in Africa and Latin America. She’ll try to avoid sinking more men and money into Afghanistan and will try to get (and keep) Pakistan turned around in a more helpful direction. Israel/Palestine will be low on her priorities–why tred on turf where others have repeatedly failed?–unless something breaks in the positive or negative direction.
Domestic issues will take priority, including fixes for Obamacare, increased infrastructure and education funding, reductions in student loan debt, criminal justice reform, corporate tax reform and appointment of at least one Supreme Court justice (unless Merrick Garland is confirmed in the lame duck session) and many other Federal judges at lower levels. She will support modestly increased defense funding and tax cuts for the middle class, funded by increases on higher incomes. She will tack slightly to the left to accommodate Bernie Sanders’ supporters, but not so far as to lose independents.
In other words, Hillary Clinton is likely to serve Barack Obama’s third term, correcting the relatively few mistakes she thinks he has made, slowing retrenchment and adapting his pragmatic non-doctrine foreign policy to the particular circumstances and events as they occur. It will take some time for the Republicans, or whatever succeeds them as the second major party, to figure out whether they are protectionist or free traders, anti-immigrant or not, interventionist or not.
Trump’s defeat will be momentous for the Republican party, but it will leave the country on more or less the same trajectory it has followed for the past 7.5 years. If she can keep it pointed in that direction for four more, we should be thankful.
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Peace picks May 31-June 3
- The Iran nuclear deal: Prelude to proliferation in the Middle East? | Tuesday, May 31st | 9:30-11:00 | Brookings | REGISTER TO ATTEND | The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) adopted by Iran and the P5+1 partners in July 2015 was an effort not only to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons but also to avert a nuclear arms competition in the Middle East. But uncertainties surrounding the future of the Iran nuclear deal, including the question of what Iran will do when key JCPOA restrictions on its nuclear program expire after 15 years, could provide incentives for some of its neighbors to keep their nuclear options open. In their Brookings Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Series monograph, “The Iran Nuclear Deal: Prelude to Proliferation in the Middle East?,” Robert Einhorn and Richard Nephew assess the current status of the JCPOA and explore the likelihood that, in the wake of the agreement, regional countries will pursue their own nuclear weapons programs or at least latent nuclear weapons capabilities. Drawing on interviews with senior government officials and non-government experts from the region, they focus in depth on the possible motivations and capabilities of Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates for pursuing nuclear weapons. The monograph also offers recommendations for policies to reinforce the JCPOA and reduce the likelihood that countries of the region will seek nuclear weapons. On May 31, the Brookings Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative will host a panel to discuss the impact of the JCPOA on prospects for nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Brookings Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Foreign Policy Suzanne Maloney will serve as moderator. Panelists include H.E. Yousef Al Otaiba, ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the United States; Derek Chollet, counselor and senior advisor for security and defense policy at the German Marshall Fund; Brookings Senior Fellow Robert Einhorn; and Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Richard Nephew. Following the discussion, panelists will take questions from the audience.
- East Asia on the Brink? The Impact of the Arms Trade and Nationalism on Regional Security | Tuesday, May 31st | 10:00-11:30 | Wilson Center | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Rapidly rising military expenditures, entrenched regional rivalries, intractable territorial disputes, and a surge in nationalism across East Asia today have often been compared with Europe on the eve of World War I. Prospects for heightened regional tensions certainly remain high, which will force the United States to adjust its own strategy as a Pacific power. Join us for a discussion on the newly emerging security agenda in East Asia to assess how rising nationalism in China, Japan, and South Korea is complicating U.S. alliance management. The dynamics of the arms trade in East Asia and how U.S. policies on arms exports may be inadvertently undermining other aspects of U.S. strategy for the region will also be analyzed. Speakers include Thomas U. Berger, Wilson Center Fellow, and Jonathan Caverley, Wilson Center Fellow.
- The Rise of Gulf Arab Cities | Tuesday, May 31st | 2:00-3:15 | Middle East Institute | REGISTER TO ATTEND | The Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to host Emirati commentator and MEI non-resident scholar Sultan al Qassemi for a discussion about the growing role of Gulf Arab cities. Qassemi argues that cities like Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Doha are eclipsing the Arab world’s traditional centers of power and culture, positioning themselves as global hubs, driven by investment in energy, finance, education, culture, and transportation. How is their growing political and cultural clout shaping regional dynamics and what impact is their influence having on long-standing alliances?
- President Obama in Hanoi: Vietnam-U.S.-China Relations in Transition | Wednesday, June 1st | 3:30-5:00 | Wilson Center | REGISTER TO ATTEND | President Obama visited Vietnam in late May of 2016, against the backdrop of growing uncertainty in the South China Sea. Vietnam-China relations are steeped in 2,000 years of shared culture and deep distrust. Like its Southeast Asian neighbors, Hanoi must balance its relationship with China and the United States with increasing care. It is a party to the Trans Pacific Partnership, but is also a founding member of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. While Vietnam values its economic relationship with the PRC, it prefers an enhanced American regional security role to the prospect of Chinese military dominance. Please join us for an assessment of President Obama’s Vietnam trip and a discussion of how Vietnam’s response to Chinese and American competition and cooperation in the region will affect the American rebalance. This event is part of the Wilson Center’s Weighing the Rebalance Series, a joint effort of the Asia Program and the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States. Sandy Pho, Program Associate, Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, will moderate. Speakers include Hung M. Nguyen, Nonresident Senior Associate, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Marvin Ott, Wilson Center Senior Scholar, and Yun Sun, Senior Associate, Henry L. Stimson Center.
- CNAS Book Launch—“The Mirror Test” by Kael Weston | Wednesday, June 1st | 5:30-7:30 | Center on New American Security | REGISTER TO ATTEND | The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) invites you to attend the book launch for The Mirror Test, a new memoir by Kael Weston, who served seven years in Iraq and Afghanistan with the US Department of State. CNAS will host a panel discussion on the issues raised in The Mirror Test, including how America is viewed in the world, how the nation views itself, and the difficult intersection between diplomacy and combat in a war zone.The panel will also include Thomas Pickering, former US Ambassador to the UN and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and S. Rebecca Zimmerman, Associate Policy Analyst at the Rand Corporation focusing on U.S. and international special operations. The event will be moderated by Phillip Carter, CNAS Senior Fellow.
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