Iraq: The Three Trillion Dollar War. Confronting Threats to the Homeland: The Next Generation

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1 V O L U M E 3 I S S U E 2 S P R I N G S U M M E R Yale Journal of International Affairs GRADUATE STUDENT PUBLICATION Iraq: The Three Trillion Dollar War Interview with Joseph Stiglitz Confronting Threats to the Homeland: The Next Generation Secretary Michael Chertoff Shared Sovereignty in the European Union: Germany's Economic Governance Sherrill Brown Wells and Samuel F. Wells, Jr. Shame Without End: Darfur and "The Responsibility To Protect" Eric Reeves ALSO INSIDE Interview with Georgian Ambassador Irakli Alasania jean krasno David Blagden on Modeling European Security and Defense Policy Creating a more representative UN Security Council

2 Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief William Ko Publisher Ryan Falvey Content and Layout Supervisor Mehrun Etebari Executive Director Dianna English Yale Journal of International Affairs Graduate Student Publication International Affairs Council 34 Hillhouse Avenue New Haven, CT Managing Editor Articles Benjamin Shatil Managing Editor Interviews Shreya Basu Managing Editor Book Reviews & Op-Eds Elizabeth Sterling Director of Business Development Nate Heller Director of Marketing Diana Chu Director of Finance and Legal Janhabi Nandy The Yale Journal of International Affairs would like to thank the following organizations at Yale University for their generous support: The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale Council on African Studies Council on East Asian Studies Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies Department of Political Science Graduate and Professional Student Senate Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Institution for Social and Policy Studies International Affairs Council International Security Studies Editors Alexander Besant Kathrin Daepp Sinead Hunt Claire Morelon Maryam Shahabi Mitch Yoshida Board of advisors Paul Bracken Theodore Bromund David Cameron Cheryl Doss William Foltz John Lewis Gaddis Nora Groce Lillian Guerra Jolyon Howorth Paul Kennedy Pierre-François Landry Bruce Russett Helen Siu The Yale Journal of International Affairs publishes the work of graduate students, professors, and practitioners within the policy community. YJIA strives to facilitate discussion of international affairs as a platform for scholarship and perspectives. Views expressed in this journal do not necessarily represent those of the editorial board, board of advisors, or Yale University. YJIA encourages authors to submit manuscripts on topics of contemporary international affairs. Double-spaced, 3,000-5,000-word research articles may be submitted to yjia@yale.edu. YJIA also considers 1,000-2,000-word review essays on recent books. For detailed submission guidelines, please consult Copyright 2008 Yale Journal of International Affairs Graduate Student Publication All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the express written consent of the Yale Journal of International Affairs Graduate Student Publication.

3 Y a l e J o u r n a l o f I n t e r n a t i o n a l A f f a i r s Graduate Student Publication Joseph Stiglitz 4 VOLUME 3 ISSUE 2 S P R I N G S U M M E R 2008 Iraq: The Three Trillion Dollar War In an interview with YJIA, Professor Joseph Stiglitz discusses the ramifications of the Iraq War on the American economy. Jeremy Sark in 11 Sherrill Brown Wells Samuel F. Wells, Jr. Shared Sovereignty in the European Union: Germany's 30 Economic Governance Ambassador Irak li Alasania 44 Achieving Reconciliation in Divided Societies: Comparing the Approaches in Timor-Leste, South Africa and Rwanda Jeremy Sarkin argues that post-conflict states should place greater emphasis on their own historical and economic circumstances rather than rely on truth commissions. Sherrill Brown Wells and Samuel F. Wells, Jr. examine the major economic initiatives taken by West Germany that led to the formation of the present-day European Union. Georgian Foreign Policy In an interview with YJIA, Georgia s Ambassador to the United Nations answers pertinent questions pertaining to Georgia s national sovereignty, bilateral relations with neighboring countries, and its current and future role in the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Eric Reeves 51 Shame Without End: Darfur and "The Responsibility To Protect" Eric Reeves investigates the effectiveness of the United Nations Genocide Convention with respect to the ongoing conflict in Darfur.

4 Alexis Arieff 60 The Strange Case of Somaliland Alexis Arieff assesses Somaliland s international status and diplomatic ties in the context of the evolving international standards of statehood and the shifting geopolitical terrain of the U.S. s War on Terror. Representative Jaushieh Joseph Wu 80 Taiwan and its Unique Relations with the United States and China Taiwan s Representative to the United States ( ) Jaushieh Joseph Wu discusses relevant issues in Taiwanese foreign policy. David Blagden 87 Modeling European Security and Defence Policy: Strategic Enablement, National Sovereignty and Differential Atlanticism David Blagden explores the underlying drivers of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and presents a model to explain how questions of national sovereignty, regionalism and U.S.-E.U. relations influence the ESDP s organizational trajectory.

5 Commentaries Secretar y Michael Cher toff 100 Confronting Threats to the Homeland: The Next Generation Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff identifies the contemporary threats to American national security and provides six initiatives on how to mitigate these dangers. Br yan Groves 109 A Two Pronged Approach for France and its Muslims: Integration and Assimilation Bryan Groves addresses the present status of Muslims in France and proposes some potential resolutions.

6 P e r s p e c t i v e s Iraq: The Three Trillion Dollar War I n t e r v i e w with Joseph Stiglitz On April 20, 2008 Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University and recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001, met with YJIA Editors Alexander Besant and William Ko to discuss some of the themes raised in his most recent book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, co-authored with Harvard Kennedy School of Government Professor Linda J. Bilmes. What inspired you to write your new book (with Linda J. Bilmes), The Three Trillion Dollar War? There are a couple of reasons why we wrote this book. First of all, our decision to write this book was academically motivated. One of the main concerns in public sector economics pertains to the disparities between budget costs and costs to society. The war provides a very dramatic case study on these differences. Linda and I were involved in both, the issues of government transparency, and the accounting aspects of the economics of information a lack of information in either leads to bad decisions. The example of the Iraq War enables us to scrutinize what went wrong in the budgeting and accounting procedures, as well as to examine the subsequent consequences. The second and much more compelling reason was that we suspected a disparity between the advertised cost of the war and the true cost on the economy. We did not anticipate it to be as large as it would be. You mentioned that the low estimates of the costs of the Iraq War range from a loss of $200 billion to a positive gain. How did so many individuals miscalculate the aggregate costs of the Iraq War? Did you make your own estimates prior to the war? Actually, the best estimate of the costs before the war was done by Professor William Nordhaus at Yale University. His work is an example of what I call "good analysis". Obviously, he did not have the time to work on the estimates Yale Journal of International Affairs

7 Iraq: The Three Trillion DOllar War as much as we did, and there were items that he could not fully take into account like we did in our book, but what was remarkable was the accuracy of the range. In fact, he anticipated that if the war extended for as long as it did, the costs would exceed one trillion dollars. Anybody who conducted the analysis carefully would have come to the same conclusion that Nordhaus did. It is difficult to look retrospectively at these numbers and comprehend how even smaller figures could be obtained. There were some things that could have been factored, but were not. An example would be serious injuries versus fatalities or the advances in modern medicine, which would consequently lead to an increase in costs. Nevertheless, had these analysts remained honest to what they were doing, they would have conducted a study similar to Nordhaus s study, and they would have reached the same conclusions but there was an obvious combination of incompetence and a deliberate attempt at concealing the costs. We see this most visibly in the reaction of individuals like Donald Rumsfeld. After Lawrence Lindsey said the war might cost $ billion, this figure was dismissed in favor of a $50-60 billion estimate. It was clear that they had an agenda to keep the actual numbers away from the people. On January 29, 2008, Paul Krugman wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times, stating that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq provided shortterm expansionary growth for the economy. He says, with slight qualifications, that Iraq is not responsible for the current economic troubles in the United States, but rather that the greatest challenge to the American economy is the bursting of the housing bubble. Do you agree with this statement? Well, I think he is looking at it in too partial a way. What he misses and it is surprising considering how good an economist Paul is is two points. The first is that the war is at least partially responsible for the increase in the price of oil. The futures markets expected that the price of oil would remain at twenty-three to twenty-five dollars per barrel for at least a decade after 2003 the year we went to war. He knew about the expansionary demands on the part of China and other emerging markets. He also knew or believed in an increase in the supply of oil from the Middle East. You can't find one responsible energy analyst that doesn t think the war had something to do with the increase in the price of oil. Now, how much the increased demand has to do with the increase in price is a matter of dispute, but we were very conservative in our estimates. We talked about a five to ten dollar per barrel increase for seven to eight years; the futures markets now expect prices to remain at an elevated level over a hundred dollars a barrel now for the Spring Summer 2008

8 Joseph Stiglitz next ten years. The fact of the matter is that the war is related to the high price of oil, and the high price of oil in turn has had a depressing effect on the economy. We are spending money on importing oil from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other countries money that we could have spent in the United States. This has a depressing effect on the economy. Economists often do a differential incidence analysis, which involves asking: what is the appropriate thought experiment if we had done this instead of that? In our book, we did this extensively, and each time, we came to the same conclusion. But let me provide a simple example. If we take the amount of money that we are using to hire a Nepalese worker in Iraq and we spend that money on constructing highways, developing schools, or funding research in the United States, the American economy would have been that much stronger, and by a significant magnitude. It depends on what your comparison is. Deficit spending of the magnitude that we have engaged in can t help but have a negative effect on our economy. At the very least, it has led to a weakening of the dollar, which has led to inflationary pressures which itself is bad for the economy. There are a number of these channels and Krugman looked at them in the old fashioned way of: if we can spend this money and nothing else happens, then the economy is more stimulated." But you cannot do that. You either have to borrow that money or substitute that money for other things you would have spent there is no experiment that allows for increasing spending without adjusting other factors. He made a fundamental mistake. If you agree with the analysis that I have just provided that this type of spending is not as stimulative as other forms of spending due to the high oil prices this means that the federal government had to do something to maintain the economy at an even keel. They (those within the federal government) took this task seriously, but myopically. In turn, they let loose more liquidity and kept more lax regulations than there otherwise would have been because they thought they needed to keep the economy going. The more lax the regulation, the more the liquidity, the bigger the housing bubble. The bigger the housing bubble, the greater the bust. The housing bubble is what led to savings going down to zero, so Krugman is right in saying that it has to do with the debacle in the financial markets, but he has not done enough analysis to explain why we have allowed this to happen in the first place. If we had been stimulating the U.S. economy, we would not have needed to do this. They would have had to increase interest rates, and the downturn would not have been as severe. Yale Journal of International Affairs

9 Iraq: The Three Trillion DOllar War It is often cited that United States is fighting on borrowed funds, particularly from China. To what extent is this true? The fundamental essence of this claim is true. The point is that the United States had a very large deficit in 2003 but we lowered the taxes just as we went to war without cutting back on expenditures. Consequently, every dollar and every dime has been borrowed. Since America s savings is down to zero, we have had to borrow from abroad. So although you cannot say that the money that China is lending is going to Iraq per se, we are nevertheless borrowing from abroad, and that money is going to war. This is the first war since the Revolution that we have had to rely on foreign debt. What are the problems with funding a war through emergency supplementals as opposed to normal budgetary appropriations? There are two problems. The first is that it leads to a set of funding by thrifts and graphs so that no one has a sense of just how much the war is costing. It was remarkable how many congressmen did not keep a tally of how much the war was costing. I think we are going through twenty-five or twenty-six separate bills for the war. The more fundamental point, however, is that the regular appropriation process is designed to have the numbers looked over carefully by Congress, the CBO (Congressional Budget Office), and the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) to make sure that there isn t corruption and that the money is well-spent. But emergency appropriations have been, for a long time, the vehicle through which a lot of corruption occurs because corporate welfare is hidden. A lot of backspending emerges in these appropriations and contributes to the rising costs of the war. this is the first war since the Revolution that we have had to rely on foreign debt. There is also a fundamental philosophical point that we emphasize in the book. We can say, in the beginning, that we did not anticipate going to war. But we are now in our sixth year of the war and cannot claim that it is still a surprise. If you are claiming that there is a surprise and that is why you need more money, what you are saying in effect is that things are not going as well as you thought. And if things are not going as well as you thought, it is incumbent upon you to explain to the American people and to Congress why things have not gone as well as you had expected, and why you thought you didn't need the money but now you do. This serves to highlight what is going wrong and forces them to do better planning ahead of time. It just Spring Summer 2008

10 Joseph Stiglitz results in better accountability and better spending. Can you comment on some of the mechanisms and enforcement measures for increasing the accountability of the Department of Defense, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chief Financial Officer? Well, in general, Congress does tie its own hands. It is done in a way that more money will not be appropriated unless taxes are raised or cutbacks in other expenditures are made. To override this agreement, sixty percent of favorable votes are required. It requires estimates of what the costs are going to be, and they have tried to improve the quality of decision-making and accountability. What we need now is the same process to be adopted. As the book states, we hold the private sector to higher standards than public servants. We require CFOs to sign the books, but we do not require the same financial statements at the Department of Defense. What is interesting is that almost every other department has such restrictions, and it is only the Department of Defense that does not. I think what Congress ought to do is simple if you can't do that then you have to offer a remediation plan or resign. The caveat, of course, is that the remediation plan must be sent to Congress in such a way that it can be remediated. In a democracy, one way that you force yourself to do it is to call public attention to your failures. Why has the United States used private contractors to the degree that it has for the Iraq War? Do you predict an increase in the privatization of war in the future? This war is the most privatized that we have ever had. I think it is a combination of several factors. This war has been marked by a higher level of corruption than other wars and has been a way of providing higher payoffs to people at Halliburton and Blackwater individuals who are clearly related to the administration in one way or another and reap significant rewards. Second, the administration has been committed from the beginning to convincing the American people that they could have a war for free without feeling the effects of the costs. This is why we have borrowed every cent. What you can do is hide from public light. They did not want the American people to know that this war would require 250,000 to 300,000 troops. This would be bordering on Vietnam-War size commitments not exactly of that magnitude, but pretty close. So what you do is use 150,000 American troops and fill the remaining 100, ,000 personnel with contractors. You never let people know for certain how many contractors or people are working in Iraq, let alone the people back at home supporting the war effort. This Yale Journal of International Affairs

11 Iraq: The Three Trillion DOllar War method is a way of disguising the magnitude of the war effort. Contractors are much more expensive service-for-service than using the Department of Defense. Furthermore, they create competition for the armed services, so we have to spend more to recruit. When a guy s tour of duty is over, he can just join a private contractor to double his pay. The only way we can keep him is to create high enlistment bonuses and to drive up the wage, but what we have done is create competition to drive up our own competition. It does not stop there it is worse than that. Contractors are simply bad for morale. Just imagine how it is for two people to be doing the same job, but one is paid two to three times more than the other. Finally, it undermines the mission because the contractors are focused on minimizing costs and maximizing profits, and not on achieving a stable peace. So as we point out in the book, it is very important to win the hearts and minds of the people and to lower the unemployment rate in Iraq, which currently sits at around sixty percent. But, for example, the contractors often decide that it is better instead to hire a Filipino contractor. Not to mention, the Filipino contractor is working against Filipino law, but we would rather violate Filipino law just to make the war effort seem like it cost less than it actually did. we should be held to the same standards as in the private sector: if promises are being made out to workers, then funds should be set aside. The institution here has a free-market ideology, but the extent to which such an ideology is relevant...it really has been intended to cloak this giveaway to corporations payoffs to their friends. Anybody who understands market economics would understand that the way they have done it and the circumstances of war are not circumstances in which private sectors work well. What makes markets work are voluntary exchanges in competitive frameworks. They outsourced to Haliburton this is not competition. Exchanges between Blackwater and the Iraqi people are not voluntary exchanges. These areas have a long understanding that the private sector does not work well. Our history of these failures has been further validated by the debacle in Iraq. The only way to understand this phenomenon is to assert that this war was a combination of a corporate giveaway and a cover up. You mentioned that veterans healthcare should be viewed as an entitlement rather than as discretionary funds. Why do you think veterans benefits have been subject to discretionary funds in the first place and what would the benefits of such a move towards an entitlement program be? Spring Summer 2008

12 Joseph Stiglitz We should be held to the same standards as in the private sector: if promises are being made out to workers, then funds should be set aside. The reason is that funds do not get put aside, and workers get short-cheated. We force them to do that, but we have not been living up to those standards ourselves. There is a real risk, and it is a risk that has already been evident in the Bush Administration because they have under-funded the VA (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs). In effect, they are breaking the contract. Anybody with a long-run concern about the strength of our military has to say that the worst thing we can do is to convey the impression that we do not treat our troops well and that is what the Bush Administration has been doing. We need to give future veterans the assurance that they re going to get what we promised them. Considering the damage in the past five years where we have broken our promise over and over again, it is really critical to say that we are going to live up to our promise and that we are going to put aside the money. The other reason why entitlement programs are important is because they ensure good accounting. When you take an action, you want to know the full costs. These are part of the true costs when we go to war which includes knowing the disability costs and the fact that we have to fund them. Having said that, we certainly have to record these costs in our account, but we have to follow through with the provisions as well. Do you believe we should cut our losses and begin redeployment of the troops from Iraq? That is a very big question, and Chapter 7 of our book presents the right framework for thinking about that. The framework for thinking about this, at the very least, is then to ask the question: what would happen if we leave now? versus what would happen if we stay? No one has made a convincing case that the likelihood of significant improvement in the situation is going to occur anytime soon. We may have reduced the level of violence though this claim is highly debatable but there is absolutely no debate over the fact that there has not been a political settlement. In fact, consider the experience in Basra. Funding separate militias has led to an explosion of conflict. This is precisely the strategy of what we have been doing in the Sunni area. The likelihood is that the same effects will occur. Unless someone can make a more compelling case than anybody has so far, the costs of staying outweigh any benefits, and we should be beginning an orderly withdrawal from Iraq. Y 10 Yale Journal of International Affairs

13 Achieving Reconciliation in Divided Societies B y Jere m y Sark i n The onset of the twenty-first century has been marked by numerous transitions from repressive rule to democracy throughout the world. Given that many displaced regimes are often characterized by large-scale human rights violations, the manner in which new democracies reconcile with their oppressive pasts will have a marked impact upon transitional societies chances for long-term peace, stability, and reconciliation. 1 At the request of the Prosecutor, the Judicial Chambers of the Court have so far approved the indictments of nine individuals. Transitioning societies face monumental challenges as they confront possible tensions between peace and justice. Individual and collective needs must be balanced against the political realities faced by a new government, which in all likelihood inherited a fragile state and limited political power. In addition, post-atrocity policies often carry the dual aims of preventing future human rights violations and repairing the damage caused by the past abuse. Post-conflict states have several options through which they may address these issues. For example, comprehensive accounts of the past are often sought as a useful tool to aid societies in their transitions from oppression to peace. However, atoning for the past is often seen as running counter to the aims of national reconciliation, unity, and institutional reconstruction. Accordingly, post-conflict governments often choose policies based upon the contexts of their transitions, taking into account the seriousness of the crimes committed as well as the resources available. In so doing, they face choices including the prudence of adopting amnesty, criminal trials, or truth commissions. While criminal trials 2 and truth commissions 3 each facilitate the revelation of Jeremy Sarkin is the Visiting Professor of International Human Rights Law, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and Member of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances. Spring Summer

14 Jeremy Sarkin details on past abuses, they are not mutually exclusive. 4 Rather, the specifics of balancing the two mechanisms must be determined upon a case-by-case basis. Given the varying circumstances among states, it is impossible to impose uniform transitional justice mechanisms upon post-conflict situations. However, given that each emerging state must be founded upon a commitment to human rights and a dedication to the rule of law, it is useful to consider a range of measures including new laws and new (or transformed) institutions that might aid in the transitional process. An attempt will be made here to trace the surge in interest regarding reconciliation 5 as a transitional justice mechanism in recent decades, including the policy motivations behind this interest. This will be followed by critically assessing the most popular reconciliation instruments, including truth commissions, in part by examining the efforts of South Africa, Rwanda, and East Timor. This comparative analysis reveals that, while the goals of reconciliation programs are indeed laudable, the specific policies and instrumentalities by which these goals are achieved remains case specific. Post-conflict states should thus refrain from adopting truth commission templates and instead critically examine their own circumstances such as history and economic outlook before embarking upon a particular reconciliation scheme. The 1990 s: The Increase in State Interest in Reconciliation Since the mid-1990s, reconciliation has assumed a prominent place upon the world stage. 6 Various countries including Algeria, Canada, Guatemala, Namibia, Nicaragua, South Africa, and Timor-Leste have enacted laws that promote reconciliation in order to heal divisions within their societies. 7 Reconciliation commissions have recently been established in Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, Sierra Leone, and Timor-Leste. 8 Countries such as Australia, Fiji, Rwanda, and the Solomon Islands have created ministries of reconciliation. Angola s first post-war government has promoted a formal and comprehensive framework of national reconciliation, 9 while the Liberian opposition movement (the Liberian Unity and Reconciliation Defense) claims to promote reconciliation, as does President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf s government. 10 Long-standing enemies North and South Korea are exhibiting signs of reconciliation. 11 Finally, the Arab League s March 2006 sponsorship of an International Conference on Reconciliation, focused on the reconstruction of Iraq, indicating reconciliation s spread into the Arab world. Yet for all of reconciliation s benefits, the increasing phenomenon of related initiatives has an unforeseen complication. Reconciliation is so easily invoked, so commonly promoted, and so immediately appealing that few 12 Yale Journal of International Affairs

15 Achieving Reconciliation in Divided Societies policymakers consider the scores of serious questions raised by related initiatives. Scant attention is being paid to the details of fostering reconciliation, or to the complex ways in which reconciliation impacts other challenges of transitional politics, such as the feasibility of justice after mass atrocity, the redistribution of wealth, the promotion of civil society, and the relevance of the past to the present and the future. Understanding reconciliation in times of political transition raises fundamental and vexing questions about the human condition, in part because related discussions invariably arise in the wake of gross human rights violations, such as disappearances, killings, torture, kidnapping, rape, and widespread child abuse. Reconciliation necessarily raises questions about the geneses of conflict and compels inquiries into how human beings can commit such horrors upon each other. Does confronting the face of evil necessitate a hard look at ourselves or are some people uniquely capable of evil? Yet it is precisely this conundrum that renders reconciliation so deeply compelling: it not only implicates the worst of what human beings are capable, but the best as well. Reconciliation represents the possibility of transforming war into peace, trauma into survival, and hatred into forgiveness. 12 It is the does confronting the face of evil necessitate a hard look at ourselves or are some people uniquely capable of evil? means by which human beings connect with one another, despite the odds imposed by unspeakable crimes. Reconciliation also exemplifies the potential for the limitless strength and generosity of the human spirit. Generally speaking, reconciliation describes a process of coming together. However, the term carries a normative almost moral aspect as well. That is to say, reconciliation is the unification (or re-unification) of things destined to be together. In contrast to its less common relative conciliation reconciliation denotes the coming together of things that once were united but have been torn apart; a return to or recreation of the status quo ante, whether real or imagined. For many observers, reconciliation is exemplified by the question of how war-ravaged societies return to a modicum of normality after neighbors have endured and perpetrated against one another crimes of unspeakable inhumanity. Reconciliation may also be considered as an evolving process rather than a static end point. Yet the questions remain: how does one measure the degree to which reconciliation has been reached in a society? What are the Spring Summer

16 Jeremy Sarkin indicators? What measurements may be used? Once defined, can absolute reconciliation ever be achieved? It is reconciliation s promise of a return to normalcy that renders it so appealing to transitional states. This appeal has reached such a fever pitch that the failure to achieve reconciliation is often viewed as a harbinger of ongoing and future conflict and violence. Yet what does reconciliation mean to different countries? Is it national unity? Peace? Healing? Empathy? Stability? Harmony? Or does it represent the development of a democracy that ensures utmost inclusivity and opportunity as well as access to resources for all? Is it all of these or none? Is it simply the process of moving on? Unsurprisingly, the answer to these questions varies from state to state. For example, in Angola, national reconciliation has been characterized as the coming together once again of Angolans to live together peacefully in the same Fatherland and in a spirit of cooperation, in the pursuit of the common good. 13 On the other hand, Fijians have set the goal of reconciliation as the promot[ion of] racial harmony and social cohesion through social, cultural, educational and other activities at all levels within the indigenous Fijian community and between various racial groups. 14 However, it does not take an in-depth inquiry to uncover the challenges inherent in applying glossy definitions to ground-level post-conflict situations. Implementing reconciliation programs necessitates the formulation of clear answers to highly complex inquiries, including the amount of focus on the past, the compatibility of reconciliation with justice and respect for human rights, the viability of forgiveness among erstwhile enemies, and so on. Each one of these questions, in turn, raises its own inquiries. For instance, the relationship between truth and reconciliation is extremely complicated. 15 Many believe that truth begets reconciliation. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, for example, proclaimed Truth: The Road to Reconciliation, and insisted on the indispensability of truth as disinfectant of conflict-related wounds, a cathartic release, and heal balm. 16 Even if truth is a precondition to reconciliation, the very definition of truth has yet to be determined. Is it merely the accumulation of forensically-proven facts or does truth represent a more complex and multi-faceted narrative? Moreover, it is possible that truth-seeking impedes reconciliation because the horror of the truth can harden attitudes thus rendering forgiveness and empathy all but impossible. 14 Yale Journal of International Affairs

17 Achieving Reconciliation in Divided Societies On the other hand, the quest for reconciliation may avoid the truth altogether if it encourages people to forget the past. Yet again, reconciliation may lead to truth by facilitating the conditions in which the truth can emerge. 17 Equally vexing questions surround the relationship between reconciliation and justice. Transition amplifies the critical nature of the link between justice and reconciliation, particularly when the past has been characterized by strife, violence, and polarization. Reconciliation often arises amid questions of how to address the fate of atrocity s perpetrators a broad term encompassing everyone from the architects to foot soldiers of past offenses. The current dominant ideology holds that taken to its logical extreme, the absence of punishment can turn successors into collaborators. reconciliation is incompatible with justice and the latter is to be favored at the expense of the former whenever they come into conflict. In cases where reconciliation is accepted, it is usually as a mere by-product of the criminal justice system. This view of reconciliation rejects prosecution and thus could thwart, rather than advance, the cause of justice. This is a narrow view. It is quite possible that reconciliation can promote justice insofar as it aims to heal troubled communities and also to redress the imbalance of the past trauma. At the very least, reconciliation can be indifferent to justice. Despite such theoretical debates, the fact is that few post-conflict states enjoy the luxury of choosing between justice and reconciliation. In too many situations, traditional aims of justice may be illusory given the scale and scope of the atrocities committed. Moreover, justice can fail due to practical challenges. While punishing the perpetrators may heighten tensions in the fledgling society and thereby hinder reconciliation, impunity undermines the new government s efforts to promote the democratic ethos and rule of law and to reinforce the division between the old, oppressive regime and the new, democratic, human-rights-respecting order. Taken to its logical extreme, the absence of punishment can turn successors into collaborators. Moreover, even in cases where post-conflict regimes pursue reconciliation agendas, progress is often undermined by persistent inequalities that fuel renewed conflict. Economic disparities significantly impact a nation s prospects for reconciliation. In order for reconciliation to occur, a nation s economy after conflict must grow, along with its per capita income. For instance some argue that, of the new democracies in Africa, only Namibia, South Africa, and Seychelles are economically prepared for democracy. 18 Spring Summer

18 Jeremy Sarkin Competing Transitional Interests? Examining States Motivations to Reconcile Reconciliation enjoys both high and low ranks on the agendas of most transitional states. While leaders and opposition groups often advance the rhetoric of reconciliation through speeches, charters, special commissions, governmental departments, and symbolic acts, the extent to which the goal of reconciliation genuinely animates the policies and politics of the transitional government remains in doubt. Reconciliation s rhetorical appeal is strong enough to make it susceptible it to exploitation. How is one to tell, for instance, whether executive endorsement of amnesty reflects unprincipled capitulation to the perpetrators of the past rather than an honest effort to move the country forward towards true reconciliation and healing? Or how does one gauge whether a government-sponsored reconciliation conference amounts to a genuine offer of an olive branch? Governments profess to pursue reconciliation for a host of reasons. Sometimes, reconciliation is lauded as a means to promote the cause of justice, particularly in the context of restorative justice. Some governments assert that reconciliation promotes deterrence, which is important not only for the intrinsic value in having peace but also for its instrumental value in promoting the rule of law and drawing a bright line between the old and new regimes. 19 Reconciliation policies can also aid in the consolidation of democracy. Of course, if reconciliation is achieved, this can have very positive effects on outsiders perception of the country. For example, a country that has successfully transitioned from hatred to reconciliation will be attractive to outside investors and tourists. A stable society particularly one in a heterogeneous state is contingent on peaceful relationships among different social, ethnic, and political groups. In the wake of strife, reconciliation must be a prominent issue on the agenda of any new government so that once-warring groups will trust each other and work together. Finally, governments may promote reconciliation in response to popular demand or because the government sees the need for it. These are, after all, situations in which many people have fought tirelessly for the right to insist on peace and reconciliation. Moreover, the manner in which a nation deals with its past reverberates throughout its present. Local and international observers often measure the success of a new regime by its treatment of the past, including how victims and perpetrators are treated by each other and society in general. While the redistribution of resources or retooling of the educational, health, housing, 16 Yale Journal of International Affairs

19 Achieving Reconciliation in Divided Societies or other welfare systems might be more important in the long run as may be reconstruction tasks, 20 reconciliation is almost as significant. Given that past abuse often prompts transition, the public often desires assurance that the sacrifices endured to change the regime were not in vain. Reconciliation programs are also a new government s most visible opportunity to distinguish themselves from the abusive regimes of the past. A government that openly eschews impunity demonstrates its commitment to justice and the rule of law; whereas a more conciliatory, victim-oriented stance, models empathy and forgiveness. Regardless of which model a post-conflict government adopts, reconciliation policies put the past on the public agenda. They also establish values of openness and transparency in contrast to the secrecy and suppression of the predecessor regime. In preparing for its future, a government must prioritize the consolidation of democracy as well as respect for the rule of law and human rights. Such goals will remain unattainable if they exist outside of the framework of a functioning democracy. The extent to which reconciliation can be achieved varies among states and societies. Moreover, there are differing opinions on what divided societies can achieve. Reconciliation can occur for individual people or among populations. Regardless, reconciliation is achieved throughout collective action or the embrace of symbols. It can take place as the result of transition, elections, or sports victories. Reconciliation achieved in such ways is in danger of being fleeting. Long-term and ongoing reconciliation, by contrast, requires an inclusive process that is accepted by once-divided people. It can transpire via words or actions but undone through one s perceptions. Reconciliation can also be encumbered when nation building is neglected. It is fragile enough to be undermined by a single leader. It is reached as the result of a conscious step or simply in the presence at a commemoration event. Reconciliation can be achieved in the wake of an oral or written request for forgiveness or peace agreement as informal as a handshake or communal meal. Sometimes reparations are required to trigger the road the reconciliation. A speech by the leader of a group or nation that recognizes the position of the once-despised group provided that it is genuine and without limitation or exception can also begin a process of reconciliation. While national governments certainly play a major role in the process of reconciliation, they are far from the only actors involved. Individual leaders and institutions are also critical. Yet, even though institutions such as religious groups, sports teams, women s groups, youth groups, the military, and the police have important roles in this regard, they can also slow the Spring Summer

20 Jeremy Sarkin reconciliation process. In light of the proliferation of so many intertwined alternatives, societies embarking on reconciliation projects must specify the level at which their reconciliation efforts are aimed in order not to waste scarce resources. In addition, the level at which reconciliation is required by a transitional society must be linked to the type of violence, trauma, or separation it endured. Reconciliation policies must be driven by an understanding of the underlying conflict in order to be responsive to the specific needs of a particular society. For example, a national commission may not promote reconciliation at the communal or individual level; conversely, funding for trauma centres may not promote political or national reconciliation. Conflict creates a wide range of individual traumas. In the aftermath of political conflict, people may face the horror of discrete events such as a rape or the loss of a loved one, or with ongoing conditions such as imprisonment, torture, displacement, or famine or disease. Most conflicts involve a combination of these hardships; survivors must reconcile themselves to some or all of them. Given that individuals are the building blocks of society, population-wide trauma can hinder national reconstruction at every level. Thus, post-trauma national health is contingent upon broad individual healing. Governments can help promote such healing in a variety of ways. For example, governments can allay fears that surround these concerns through public assurances. Public statements demonstrate the state s commitment to safety not only to victims but also to those who may wish to undermine it. The government can also promote physical safety, depending on the nature of the trauma from which individuals in the country are recovering. In addition, post-conflict governments must foster individual reconciliation when personal trauma is so widespread as to be national in scope or effect. Failure to promote individual reconciliation can impede national reconciliation and reconstruction. Widespread individual healing, however, is difficult to achieve. It requires substantial resources. It compels personalized assessment because individuals do not heal in the same way; indeed, some never heal entirely and others are not as accepting and tolerant of each other. Personality which is partly made up of past events and trauma is a key factor in determining the degree and scope to which reconciliation can ocpost-conflict states rarely fit the dominant paradigm of nationhood. 18 Yale Journal of International Affairs

21 Achieving Reconciliation in Divided Societies cur. Other factors include perceptions of others including perpetrators, witnesses, and innocent third parties, and their treatment of the survivor. Perhaps most importantly, it can be a challenge to discern the connection between national and individual reconciliation. National and reconciliation pose practical and conceptual problems. 21 Nationhood often connotes a centralized government that controls a defined territory and implies that the people within that territory identify themselves as members of the national polity even if they also identify with other cultural, ethnic, or regional ways. While this framework is the norm throughout much of the world, it is not universal. In addition, post-conflict states rarely fit the dominant paradigm of nationhood. Truth Commissions: The Most-Favored Reconciliation Model As transitional states search for methods by which to promote reconciliation, truth commissions 22 have risen in popularity, though they are not the only alternative to trials. While truth commissions first emerged in the 1970s, they enjoyed surges in popularity: in the mid-1980s, after the apparent success of the Salvadoran commission in 1984; and in the mid-1990s, following in the footsteps of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Recently, Nigeria, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Timor-Leste, and Peru have established truth commissions and there have been unofficial commissions in Northern Ireland and Greensboro, North Carolina in the United States. The proliferation of truth commissions has led to a diversification in their form. Truth commissions vary in every important structural aspect depending upon their location. One commonality is the frequent inclusion of truth commission provisions in peace accords, though most commissions continue to emerge from within cultures, which explains their diversity in structure and in form. Most truth commissions are mandated by the government, although some successful truth commissions have been developed by the United Nations (El Salvador), international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (Rwanda in the early 1990s), or domestic NGOs (Brazil). Governmental commissions can be created by executive order (Chile) or by legislation (South Africa). While most truth commissions are limited in duration, some are not (Chad and Uganda). Some have extensive authority, such as the power to subpoena, while others rely upon volunteer participation. The jurisdiction of truth commissions also varies. Some commissions examine broad historical patterns of abuses that occurred over a lengthy period of time (Chile), while others are limited to investigating specific acts committed by specific people. Some truth commissions involve as wide a swath of the Spring Summer

22 Jeremy Sarkin population as possible (Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste, and South Africa), while others operate in secret and at the margins (Guatemala).Some are required to name names, whereas others are prohibited from doing so. As a whole, truth commissions are assumed to be the transitional justice mechanisms most capable of promoting reconciliation, if only because they are often designed specifically for that purpose. By contrast, if trials which are primarily designed to punish perpetrators and amnesty laws which are primarily designed to absolve them promote reconciliation, it is only as a by-product of their principal aims. Three National Reconciliation Policies: South Africa, Rwanda and Timor- Leste Three countries that have pursued reconciliation policies via national institutions are South Africa, Rwanda, and Timor-Leste. Each nation has emerged from transitions relatively close to one another, but yet their approaches to justice have varied widely. South Africa and Timor-Leste established truth commissions; Rwanda did not. As a result, Rwandans have not experienced the national catharsis associated with regular public hearings as have South Africans 23 or Timorese, although Rwanda s gacaca courts might achieve some of this at the local level. Rwanda established a National Unity and Reconciliation Commission which is ostensibly devoted to promoting reconciliation throughout the country by reeducating those in detention or former exiles. However, the commission has problems in its design and composition. The extent to which reconciliation is prioritized is also questioned. Not only does Rwanda s response to atrocity differ from those of South Africa and East Timor but so did the very nature of its conflict. During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, nearly every village was scarred by violence. South Africa did not witness that level or nature of violence. However, apartheid did severely impact the majority of the population by segregating people by race into separate towns and villages; this had long term implications on issues such as political empowerment, economic empowerment, and land possession still visible today. The South African and East Timorese truth commissions provide excellent examples of eliciting victim stories. The South African TRC achieved this by inviting victims to participate in the truth commission process, first as witnesses during the Human Rights Hearings and then as opponents to amnesty during the Amnesty Hearings Yale Journal of International Affairs

23 Achieving Reconciliation in Divided Societies The South African government s emphatic promotion of bilateral reconciliation suggests that it felt that the success of its transition was at least partly predicated upon the ability of survivors and perpetrators of gross human rights abuses to coexist. In fact, such insistence was not always welcome. Some individual witnesses vehemently resisted what they perceived to be the TRC s efforts to impose reconciliation and forgiveness upon them. Another distinction among the three nations is the level of international cooperation in reconciliation programs. For example, international actors assisted Rwanda and Timor-Leste is establishing their accountability mechanisms whereas South Africa rejected such assistance. Public participation has also evolved with increasing use of truth commissions. While the first generation of truth commissions operated largely behind closed doors, the current wave including commissions in South Africa, Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste, and perhaps Bosnia is characterized by a high degree of public participation and transparency. 25 Not only do the models of reconciliation vary among the three countries but the policy motivations behind their establishments differ as well. For example, Rwanda s gacaca courts are a prime example of supposed participatory justice, as opposed to the exclusive nature of domestic and international criminal tribunals. On the other hand, South Africa s choice to incorporate an amnesty law into its TRC structure enabled the commission to deal with crimes committed. Therefore, reconciliation was both a pragmatic and a principled response to the post-apartheid period. It was the best of the transitional justice alternatives, given the cost and uncertainty of high-profile trials, the lack of information about the gross human rights abuses, and the desperate need to avoid inter-racial and political violence. Moreover, the TRC embodied a principled mode by which South Africans could confront the horrible realities of apartheid and emphatically depart from the values of the prior regime. Despite its virtues, no country has promoted reconciliation as a sole alternative to trials. Even the South African TRC has emphasized its complementary role vis-à-vis trials, though, admittedly, almost no trials have occurred. The TRC argued that the truth-for-amnesty exchange mandated by its enabling legislation constituted a form of public shaming that would follow alleged perpetrators back to their communities. Yet while the TRC Act required perpetrators to fully disclose their participation in motivated crimes, it did not require remorse, restitution, or any Spring Summer

24 Jeremy Sarkin other form of amends. Some argue that this is a fatal flaw of the South African process. Admittedly, avowals of remorse and regret are easily faked and often so detected by victims. They can be issued for the wrong reasons, particularly when there is material benefit to for displaying remorse. They can also be delivered in ways that are only minimally sincere and thus inadequate for the victims. Given that it is impossible to secure true and valuable remorse, it might be argued that remorse should not play a significant role in any meaningful reconciliation process. Yet, inviting without demanding acknowledgment of responsibility and remorse may very well honor the victims as well as the perpetrators. Such an invitation will provide an opportunity to observe the absence of remorse, which while disappointing reflects the extent to which the population remains divided and the victims remain at risk. The South African TRC did not predicate amnesty upon reparations of any kind. As a result, thousands of perpetrators have enjoyed amnesty while millions of victims await the most basic of human services. This disconnect is in part because many of the latter were not found to be victims under the formal terms of the TRC s mandate. Of those who were deemed to be victims, few have received adequate financial benefit. To date, the government of South Africa has paid only a fraction of the nominal amounts that the TRC recommended. This inequality among the beneficiaries of the TRC process has generated substantial bitterness and resentment. It is also reinforced by the perpetual inequalities in the standard of living between blacks and whites in South Africa. t h e ro l e o f i n d i v i d u a l s in the attempt to achieve reconciliation cannot be overstated. Early in its inception, TRC discussions focused on national reconciliation. However, by the conclusion of its mandate, many questioned the degree to which the TRC had actively attempted to promote reconciliation and whether it played a sufficient role in this regard. Various activities and statements by the TRC document their role in the process of reconciliation, but public opinion about the Commission which is one indicator of the level of reconciliation achieved differed along racial lines. While reconciliation rhetoric was deployed during the formulation and genesis of the TRC and anecdotal evidence of reconciliation efforts abound, critical questions concern the effect that these efforts had on the state of South Africa. However, given that reconciliation is an ongoing process, it might be unfair so soon after the TRC has concluded to critique the extent 22 Yale Journal of International Affairs

25 Achieving Reconciliation in Divided Societies to which it has achieved its stated goals. Moreover, no single institution can be held accountable for reconciling an entire scarred nation. Although, the state plays the most important role in the reconciliation process, the role of individuals in the attempt to achieve reconciliation cannot be overstated. For example, in South Africa, the role of Archbishop Tutu has been critical, as was that of President Gusmao in Timor-Leste. Timor-Leste s truth commission operated in tandem with a UN-backed Special Court which prosecuted those guilty of certain crimes. To achieve reconciliation, Timor-Leste developed a model that relied on traditional reconciliation processes. Unlike Rwanda s gacaca courts, which are being used to prosecute tens of thousands, the Timorese model operates as a variation on reconciliation, rather than as a variation of a justice system. The national reconciliation commission (CAVR) sponsored several programs to facilitate community healing; one such particular program included the reintegration (or acolhimento) of soldiers and refugees. Its Community Reconciliation Program (CRP), combined traditional justice, arbitration, mediation and other components of the law. Like Rwandan gacaca, the CRP emphasized community participation and addressed only minor offenses because community members refused to reconcile with those responsible for more serious crimes until they had been prosecuted. However, the gacaca courts in Rwanda differ from East Timor s CRP in other ways. While gacaca courts derive from Rwanda s traditional legal system and have been used for centuries, they are being revived and completely reshaped to accommodate the government s need to prosecute accused genocidaires. Gacaca supposedly prioritizes group relations over individual rights. The restoration of relationships and reconciliation of groups is essential. As such, traditional mechanisms have, in theory, the potential to promote reconciliation in several ways. First, public participation is intended to foster cohesiveness among community members. Moreover, local and public processes may constitute a form of public shaming of accused. Second, the public s commitment to the process as demonstrated by their participation enhances legitimacy of the process, which in turn can promote the sense of justice and faith in the rule of law. Third, and most importantly from a reintegration standpoint, the public is assumed to have endorsed any result assessed. Fourth, traditional processes may exact concessions from defendants in exchange for the right of return. Such concessions may be verbal such as an apology 26 or showing of remorse, or it may be material, in the form of a promise to help build a home for the victim s family, pay restitution, or perform community service, depending on the defendant s Spring Summer

26 Jeremy Sarkin skills or the nature of the crime. Such displays illustrate a returnee s genuine remorse but also materially enhance the quality of life of the community members at large and perhaps also that of the victim. Such exchanges help victims and communities move on. Regardless of its supposed promise, the optimism with which some in the international community have embraced the Rwandan system, and expressing feelings that Rwanda ought to be given some latitude in regard to these mechanisms, gacaca has in practice been plagued by problems. There are problems in its conceptualization and intent, 27 especially as conceived by those who appear before them as perpetrators. What was gacaca in the past is not the gacaca of today. Many see these courts as political processes rather than legal ones, and that these processes are victor s justice meant to keep the majority out of power. In January 2006, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that, despite their initial legitimacy, gacaca courts have bred a sense of distrust. 28 The organization also described how some judges ignored the gacaca rules and subjected hundreds to preventive detention because they gave false or incomplete evidence. 29 In addition, HRW observed that approximately 10,000 people fled to neighboring countries out of fear of false accusations and unfair trials, and that many of the courts had failed to inspire public confidence in part because hundreds of the judges themselves were accused of crimes, some witnesses were unwilling to testify, and the courts were precluded from addressing crimes allegedly committed by Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) soldiers. 30 HRW has gone as far as to assert that the courts deliver one-sided justice. Even though Timor-Leste s CRP is based upon customary law, it is not as structured as gacaca. The process allows flexibility for the inclusion of elements from local traditional practice. 31 Village elders attend proceedings along with the deponents, victims, CRP panel members, and interested community members. Proceedings are usually open and incorporate traditional rituals such as a collective prayer to promote a spirit of concord. 32 Participants are not allowed to interrupt as the deponent told his or her story. Only when the deponent finishes are victims and community members permitted to speak and ask questions. The panel then moderates an intra-party discussion, culminating in a Community Reconciliation Agreement that puts forth the acts of reconciliation assigned to the deponent, which serve to demonstrate his or her commitment to the community. In addition to involving the public in its proceedings, the CAVR took its public information role very seriously, producing a range of accessible ma- 24 Yale Journal of International Affairs

27 Achieving Reconciliation in Divided Societies terial, such as a feature-length film in multiple languages, a photographic exhibition, a series of books on the hearings, and a photographic book of survivors. A weekly radio program covered many community reconciliation hearings, as well as other issues. The South African TRC undertook similar initiatives though Rwanda s gacaca has not. Drawing upon affordable technologies and international aid, national truth commissions such as those in Morocco, Timor-Leste, Peru, and Sierra Leone are disseminating their reports more widely. The South African TRC published reports on the internet and made them available in bookshops, whereas Rwanda has done little to disseminate its reconciliation process publicly. The Timorese process, by contrast, allowed victims an opportunity to speak directly to the nation. Many of the hearings were broadcast on television and radio, and thus the victim s narrative was heard throughout Timor-Leste. 33 The hearings therefore placed ordinary people at the centre of the national debate on healing, reconciliation and justice. 34 A similar approach occurred in South Africa with much of the TRC process being televised and broadcast on the radio. In Timor-Leste acts of reconciliation include traditional (wrapping of negative acts in a coconut to be buried in a forest and presenting the community with a fresh coconut, representing positive acts), symbolic (contributing a sacrificial animal to be enjoyed at a communal feast), constructive (repair of buildings or tree planting over a period of three months), and compensatory (including cash, livestock, textiles, and ornaments). 35 Parties often confirmed the speaking of the truth through reading animal entrails. Proceedings ended with a summary of the day s events and a moral teaching presented on the theme of togetherness. 36 Early indications suggest that the CRP has effectively helped formalize the reintegration of people into their communities, although recent events of conflict and violence in Timor-Leste suggest that more programming is needed at the institutional level. According to the Chair of the CAVR: The spiritual and cultural practices of particular regions can be used during hearings and negotiations, give additional meaning and force to the process, in addition to giving the relevant communities a larger sense of ownership and participation. 37 The process effectively reached illiterate Timorese because it recognised both the depth of community experience of violence and the rich East Timorese oral tradition. They were initially created as a research tool in the Commission s truth-seeking work, but were soon acknowledged as valuable occasions for developing community understanding and healing. 38 The CAVR s historical record developed in this way and became authoritative Spring Summer

28 Jeremy Sarkin within the community even if not scientifically accurate. It also furnished a starting point for future investigations and a foundation for recommendations to the national government for compensatory or reparatory programs. In a series of CAVR-sponsored healing workshops, Timorese torture survivors used art, music, theater, and dance to catalyze discussion and understanding. Singing and theatre were seen to be important because of various types of disability of victims. However, as suggested earlier, Timor-Leste s recent troubles reveal that more reconciliation programs need to be undertaken. Reconciliation is more than truth telling and forgiveness. Indeed, in a domestic transitional setting, reconciliation encompasses both conflict resolution and social rehabilitation. Moreover, reconciliation takes place at different levels within a nation: personal, inter-personal, collective and national. Developing cohesive and neutral national institutions is critical to ensure peace and stability. 39 Post-conflict governments often inherit socieities that have been fractured by oppressive regimes that have manipulated race, religion, and ethnicity to gain and maintain power. Populations that have been subjected to divide and rule tactics are likely to remain divided and harbor fear and resentment against each other. Reconciliation is a long-term process aimed at addressing these formidable obstacles. As such, it requires measured programs and processes. In some countries, the central government is so weak that it can barely be realistically said that the nation is a particular thing; rather, the territory that purportedly makes up the nation is broken up into distinct regions, populations, or political or economic interests. It may be a state from an international and legalistic point of view, but cannot claim to be a nation. To achieve nationhood is to achieve much more. Thus, at some levels South Africa has done relatively well at building a nation although not so well at dealing with reconciliation between groups and individuals. Timor-Leste and Rwanda have still a long road to travel to achieve reconciliation at many different levels. Conclusion When weighing the mechanics and methodology of reconciliation programs and policy, it is important to remember that each country has different political, social, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic groups and issues; none of which are the same in any two countries. As a result, there is no universal model for transitional justice or reconciliation. While lessons can be shared among post-conflict states and best practices adapted to the needs of specific 26 Yale Journal of International Affairs

29 Achieving Reconciliation in Divided Societies countries, it would be dangerous to copy or duplicate what has been done elsewhere and expect the same results, given the inner diversity previously discussed. Countries with similar conditions may be able to adopt a specific piece of legislation or policy, but its impact will be different than in the state of origin. Indeed, it may even fail simply because it is deemed to belong to another country or another context. It is thus imperative for each country to set its own reconciliation agenda by taking into account in its history, socioeconomic context as well as other issues.y -Elizabeth Sterling served as lead editor for this article. NOTES 1 Jeremy Sarkin, "The Coming of Age of Claims for Reprations for Human Rights Abuses Committed in the South" Sur International Human Rights Journal (2004) Jeremy Sarkin, Carrots and Sticks: The TRC and the South African Amnesty Process (Antwerp: Intersentia, 2004). 3 Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity, Priscilla Hayner, (Routledge, 2000). 4 See further Jeremy Sarkin To prosecute or not to prosecute that is the question? An examination of the constitutional and legal issues concerning criminal trials in Charles Villa-Vicencio and Erik Doxtader (eds) The Provocations of Amnesty David Philip Publishers On the meaning and construction of reconciliation in its various parts and at different layers of a society see Erin Daly and Jeremy Sarkin Reconciliation in Divided Societies: Finding Common Ground, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania University Press See Bloomfield, David, Barnes, Teresa and Huyse, Luc (eds), Reconciliation after Violent Conflict: A Handbook (Handbook Series, International IDEA, Stockholm 2003). 7 Erin Daly and Jeremy Sarkin Reconciliation in Divided Societies: Finding Common Ground, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania University Press Jeremy Sarkin and Erin Daly, Too many questions, too few answers: Reconciliation in transitional societies, Columbia Human Rights Law Review 35 (3) (2004): Lusaka Protocol, Annex 6, 1 (1999), annex6.htm/. See Jeremy Sarkin, Democratizacao E Justice No Periodo De Transicao Em Angola, in Conferencia Internacional Angola - Direito, Democracia, Paz E Desenvolvimento (2001): Annual Report for Liberia, (New York: Amnesty International, 2006). 11 See Jeremy Sarkin and Guilia Dalco, Promoting human rights and achieving reconciliation at the international level (Part 1), Law, Democracy and Development 2006 (1): 69-99; Jeremy Sarkin and Guilia Dalco, Promoting human rights and achieving reconciliation at the international level (Part 2), Law, Democracy and Development 2006 (2). 12 Forgiveness and Reconciliation edited by Raymond G. Helmick and Rodney L. Petersen Templeton Foundation Press. 13 The Lusake Protocol agreed to by The Government of the Republic of Angola (GRA) and the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) on 15 November Ministry of National Reconciliation and Multi-Ethnic Affairs, Fiji Government Online Portal, at fj/publish/m_reconciliation.shtml. 15 Daan Bronkhorst, Truth and Reconciliation: Obstacles and Opportunities for Human Rights, (Amsterdam: Amnesty International, 1995). 16 Kader Asmal et al., Reconciliation Through Truth: A Reckoning of Apartheid s Criminal Governance, (Cape Town: David Philip Publishers, 1996), See Stephen Holmes, Gag Rules or the Politics of Omission, in The Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), Michael Bratton & Nicholas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge, U.K.; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 1997), See Jose Zalaquett, Conference Presentation, in Alex Boraine et al., eds., Dealing with the Past: Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa, (Cape Town: Institute for Democracy in South Africa, 1997), Healing the Wounds, Essays on the Reconstruction of Societies after War, Foblets & Von Trotha, eds, (Hart Publishing: Oxford, Portland, 2004). 21 See further Dilemmas of Reconciliation, Cases and Concepts, Prager and Govier eds (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, Ontario: 2003). 22 On truth commissions and their role see e.g. Jeremy Sarkin, Carrots and Sticks: The TRC and the South African Amnesty Process (Antwerp: Intersentia, 2004). See also Jeremy Sarkin The Necessity and Challenges of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Rwanda Human Rights Quarterly (August 1999) Jeremy Sarkin, The amnesty hearings in South Africa revisited, in Gerhard Werle, ed., Justice in Transition Pros Spring Summer

30 Jeremy Sarkin ecution and Amnesty in Germany and South Africa, (Berlin: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2006). 24 Jeremy Sarkin An Evaluation of the South African Amnesty Process in Audrey Chapman and Hugo van der Merwe (eds) Truth and Reconciliation: Did the TRC Deliver (University of Pennsylvania Press) Jeremy Sarkin, Carrots and Sticks: The TRC and the South African Amnesty Process (Antwerp: Intersentia, 2004). 26 See generally Elazar Barkan and Alexander Karn. Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, See Jeremy Sarkin The Tension between Justice and Reconciliation in Rwanda: Politics, Human Rights, Due Process and the Role of the Gacaca Courts in Dealing With the Genocide 45(2) Journal of African Law (2001) World Report: Rwanda, (New York: Human Rights Watch, (2006). 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Final Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR), available on line at Part 9, para CAVR Part 9, paras ; Final Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR), Part 10, para Ibid. 35 CAVR Report Part 9, paras Ibid. 37 Aniceto Guterres Lopes, acceptance speech, available at 38 Final Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR), Part 10, paras , available on line athttp://etan.org/news/2006/cavr.htm 39 Nigel Biggar s Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice after Civil Conflict (Georgetown University Press, 2003). 28 Yale Journal of International Affairs

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32 Shared Sovereignty in the European Union: Germany's Economic Governance B y Sherrill Brown We l l s & Samuel F. We l l s, Jr. Why did West Germany, with the most powerful economy within the European Union (EU), choose to relinquish its stable, highly-prized deutsche mark to join the European Monetary Union (EMU) and accept significant constraints on its fiscal and monetary policies? The answer lies in a series of historical stages after 1945, each reflecting an increasing acceptance of the need to abandon balance of power politics for a multiple-level shared sovereignty through economic and political integration with other European Union member states. In West Germany s domestic policy, this realization was facilitated by a social partnership in which power and decision making was shared among major interest groups. In foreign policy, the parallel system was one of a security partnership with major and minor powers in Europe and North America. As a result, Germany based its international actions on multilateral institutions such as the United Nations (UN), North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Council of Europe, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the European Community (CSCE) (later the European Union) (EU). Internally, this approach assured that no major interest, neither big business nor labor, would dominate. Internationally, the multilateral policy encouraged other states to accept Germany s increasing economic strength without fearing it would be harnessed to serve national political ambitions. The ultimate proof of the wisdom of this approach was the relative ease with which Germany s neighbors, allies, and rivals accepted the unification of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. This Sherrill Brown Wells is a lecturer in history and international affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Samuel F. Wells, Jr. is the Director of West European Studies and the Associate Director of the Director's Office at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Yale Journal of International Affairs 30

33 Shared Sovereignty in the european union system evolved gradually with occasional reversals and not without guidance and sometimes pressure from allies and partners. 1 Such an interpretation of West German behavior runs directly counter to the theory of offensive realism as argued most prominently by John J. Mearsheimer in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics and earlier articles. In an anarchic international system in which states can never know the intentions of their rivals, Mearsheimer contends that each state must seek to maximize its share of world power. A state s ultimate goal, he asserts, is to be the hegemon of the system. According to this theory, international institutions such as the UN or EU are not significant actors. Only states wield actual power. 2 West German policy was shaped by a very different calculus than that advanced by Professor Mearsheimer. The intellectual and political origins of this policy began before 1945 and were initially shaped by leaders of Germany s traditional enemy: France. The Schuman Plan: The First Step in Shared Sovereignty The most innovative proponent of shared sovereignty was Jean Monnet, a French businessman and international administrator who together with the French foreign minister Robert Schuman developed the first significant initiative in the process of European integration. Monnet s concept of shared sovereignty, the heart of the Schuman Plan, brought this idea to the forefront of a wide range of proposals for European integration circulating in the period after The idea of pooling the coal and steel resources of France, Germany, and other European nations had been discussed among European political circles for several decades. Monnet s specific ideas of pooling sovereignty arose from his belief that rampant unchecked nationalism was one of the most significant causes of the two World Wars. He had also experienced as an official of the League of Nations that the intergovernmentalism of the league made it ineffective as an international body in maintaining peace, because its member nations could veto any plan for action. Monnet s idea of shared sovereignty developed not through any theoretical analysis but from his experience as an economist and civil servant working on allied economic coordination in World War I and as Deputy Director General of the League of Nations. For him shared sovereignty was a means to achieving several of his principal goals. Foremost he wanted to bring lasting peace and an end to the wars that had dominated Europe for two centuries. He also sought to restore Europe s economic and political power as well as its international influence by uniting the principal nations of Europe through the political and economic leadership of France. And finally his long-range goal was to change the relationship between states in a manner that would revolutionize Spring Summer

34 Sherril Brown Wells & Samuel F. Wells, JR. international relations. 3 Monnet set forth some of his ideas in an article in the August 1944 issue of Fortune magazine. In order to establish lasting peace, he asserted there would have to be a true yielding of sovereignty to some kind of central union. He favored a large European market without customs barriers to prevent nationalism, which he characterized as the curse of the modern world. 4 By the late 1940s Monnet expressed his ideas more broadly. He understood that peaceful intentions and treaties were not enough to guarantee peace because the nation state was not reigned in by laws or institutions. He therefore wanted a new kind of international institution that would require nations to transfer to a common authority the powers which they can no longer exercise separately for the benefit of each of our countries. The only way to prevent a coalition of governments acting leaders in the Truman administration wanted a s t r e n g t h e n e d European defense built a ro u n d a re a r m e d Germany. to the detriment to one of the partners, he stated, was the delegation of some part of the powers of the States to a common authority, that is, to a federal institution whose members are the representatives of all participating countries... 5 In April 1950 Monnet explained his proposal to Robert Schuman. He emphasized the need to tie an expanding German economy to France and pointed out that American officials were preparing to remove the restrictions placed by the occupying powers on industrial activity. Already a proponent of French-German reconciliation, Schuman persuaded his government to adopt Monnet s proposal and announce the plan on May 9, Two weeks later Monnet traveled to Bonn to present the Schuman Plan to the German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. The German leader proved a very receptive listener, because he strongly believed that the way to rebuild Germany without arousing anxiety among its neighbors was to integrate its economic and political systems firmly in European multilateral institutions. At the end of their meeting Adenauer told Monnet that he considered the implementation of the French proposal to be the most important mission falling to him. If he succeeded in reaching the proper resolution, he would feel that he had not wasted his life. 6 Many Germans did not share Adenauer s vision. Opposition to the Schuman Plan was especially strong within the Social Democratic Party (SPD) whose leaders attacked the proposal on nationalistic and ideological grounds. Kurt Schumacher, leader of the SPD, sharply criticized the plan as putting the 32 Yale Journal of International Affairs

35 Shared Sovereignty in the european union Germany economy in the service of French diplomacy and placing heavy industry under private control, thus preventing the creation of a social democratic Europe. For different reasons, most West European industrialists also opposed the plan as destroying the cartels that protected their vested interests. 7 During negotiations, French support for the plan was challenged by the issue of German rearmament. The outbreak of the Korean War, widely thought to be inspired by Moscow, raised fears in the United States of increased Soviet threats to Western Europe. To ease such threats, leaders in the Truman administration wanted a strengthened European defense built around a rearmed Germany. Again Jean Monnet produced a plan to deal with this problem through further European integration. His solution was a gradual rearmament of Germany with the units to be merged into a larger European army under a supranational European Defense Community (EDC) with a European minister of defense. Endorsed by the French National Assembly in October 1950, this proposal was called the Pleven Plan, after the French Prime Minister René Pleven. 8 Pressure from the U.S. High Commissioner for West Germany, John J. McCloy, persuaded Adenauer to overcome the opposition to the Schuman Plan and sign the treaty creating the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) on April 18, This treaty established a supranational community with the goal of creating a common market in coal and steel, without customs duties or other trade restrictions. It was ratified by six nations: France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. In the summer of 1952 after ratification the new supranational community was established by a nine member High Authority which named Jean Monnet as its president. 9 Established national priorities and special interests in economic and defense policies created insurmountable problems for both the EDC and the ECSC. After many negotiated changes to the original Pleven Plan, the EDC Treaty was signed in May But many doubts remained, especially in France, and in August 1954 the French National Assembly rejected the treaty and put the EDC to rest. Meanwhile, the High Authority of the ECSC had extensive discussions with national ministers, unions, and industrialists about eliminating tariffs and production quotas on coal and steel. But they found it impossible to persuade these groups to remove the barriers to free trade, and they had to accept that they lacked the authority to order them to do so. While the ECSC created some improved communication and understanding on industrial cooperation and rulemaking among old enemies, it ultimately was deadlocked in its attempt to create a free trade area in coal and steel. 10 Spring Summer

36 Sherril Brown Wells & Samuel F. Wells, JR. The deepening Cold War overshadowed the tentative steps toward integration as Soviet pressure on West Germany emphasized the need for improved European defense and German rearmament. At British initiative in 1954, the six members of the Brussels Pact (a March 1948 security treaty) agreed to end the occupation in Germany, add Germany and Italy as members, and create the Western European Union for common defense activities as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This ultimately brought Germany into the Atlantic alliance, kept U.S. forces in Europe, and created a widely accepted European defense organization. With the participation of Britain and the United States, an important step was achieved in strengthening European defense and in making Germany an equal member of the alliance. Adenauer declared at the signing of the agreement in Paris that October 23, 1954 was the day of reconciliation with France. 11 Germany and the Rome Treaties Along with improved security in Western Europe, sustained economic growth and further steps in French-German cooperation stimulated new efforts to improve sovereignty and advance integration of the six European economies. A referendum on the future of the Saar region in October 1955 saw the residents vote overwhelmingly to return to Germany. The peaceful reunion of the Saar with West Germany was an important measure in building confidence and improved relations between Bonn and Paris. Spurred by the failure of the EDC, Monnet and Spaak began to exchange ideas in the fall of 1954 about new initiatives for integration. During 1955 to 1956 the six foreign ministers gathered at conferences in Messina and Venice to discuss these concepts in depth. 12 By the summer of 1956 these discussions were sufficiently advanced to convene an intergovernmental conference in Brussels chaired by Paul-Henri Spaak. The negotiators confronted many difficulties with the main obstacle being French protectionism driven by fear of the power of a resurgent German economy. Konrad Adenauer played a key role in bringing to a successful conclusion the difficult negotiations for what became the Rome treaties. He worked closely with Spaak and showed himself willing to compromise on key issues that were important for the further integration of West Germany into Europe. Adenauer strongly believed that a united Europe would further Franco-German reconciliation, strengthen Europe against the Soviet Union, improve relations with the United States, and benefit West Germany s economy through market liberalization. In a memorandum to the members of his cabinet on January 19, 1956, Adenauer demanded that in the forthcom- 34 Yale Journal of International Affairs

37 Shared Sovereignty in the european union ing negotiations his ministers demonstrate a clear, positive German attitude toward European integration. He asserted: If integration is successful we can add the weight of a united Europe as an important new element into the balance of the negotiations on security as well as reunification. The parties achieved agreement due to concessions to France on two key points: French overseas territories would be included in the new common market, and a new organization to promote the peaceful uses of atomic energy would be created by the six nations. 13 The six nations signed the two treaties of Rome on March 25, The European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) would exploit the peaceful uses of atomic energy through research, development of safety measures, supervision of nuclear materials, and creation of a common market for specialized materials, capital, jobs, and equipment. The European Economic Community (EEC), a more important agreement, created a customs union to move toward a common market, a goal that would not be achieved until the early 1990s. The EEC worked through a Council of Ministers representing heads of government, a Commission of high civil servants, a Parliament, and a Court of Justice. The treaties were ratified by the end of 1957 and went into effect on January 1, Europe now consisted of three communities: the ECSC, the EEC, and Euratom. 14 With these treaties the leaders of Europe put aside old rivalries and, while protecting many basic national interests, compromised on others in order to achieve peace, economic growth, and political stability. In particular in accepting Euratom Germany agreed to significant constraints on its uses of nuclear technology, and by entering a customs union tied its economic prospects to the common future of the six members. In return Italy and Germany gained acceptance of their political rehabilitation and returned to membership in the European family of states. Overall these agreements were a unique step in the long history of conflict among European nation-states as six members agreed to limit but not totally transfer national sovereignty in economic policy to a set of common institutions. The European Monetary System The period from 1957 to 1978 saw many developments in Europe but only gradual evolution of the institutions of the European communities. Charles de Gaulle as President of France from 1958 to 1969 took significant steps to establish the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) by a key agreement with Germany and to strengthen cooperation with Bonn through the Elysée Treaty of But de Gaulle s opposition to shared sovereignty slowed development Spring Summer

38 Sherril Brown Wells & Samuel F. Wells, JR. of European institutions beyond the creation of a customs union. Meanwhile the decline in utility of the ECSC and Euratom led to the merger of their executive functions with the EEC in 1967 creating a single European Community. The six member states realized significant economic growth for most of this period until the Arab oil embargo of This event along with turbulence in financial markets following the abandonment of the gold standard and the adoption of floating currencies also in 1973 led to worldwide inflation and recession in the following year. The EC also expanded its membership with the addition of Britain, Ireland, and Denmark in By 1978 European leaders were ready to take action to establish effective European regional cooperation in monetary policy. Advocates of closer European integration had long wanted to add monetary cooperation to the market coordination that had developed, but it took several years of oilprice driven inflation and fluctuating currency markets to persuade politicians to move. The creation of the European Monetary System (EMS) was a result of cooperation and creative leadership by Roy Jenkins, President of the European Commission, who conceived of the idea in 1977, President Valéry Giscard d Estaing of France, who strongly supported it, and German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who was the driving force behind it. After initially ignoring the proposal, Schmidt moved in early 1978 to propose the creation of a new monetary system because the persistent depreciation of the dollar and a corresponding appreciation of the deutsche mark reduced the competitiveness of West German exports and threatened its jobs. The United States appeared to be recovering from a global economic crisis at the expense of West Germany s prudence and prosperity. Schmidt was incensed by the foreign policy of Jimmy Carter s administration and what he saw as its cavalier approach to international monetary matters, and he was determined to respond to the impact of these policies on Germany. He wanted to cushion West Germany from the impact of ill-advised U.S. policies by establishing a European-wide monetary system to demonstrate to Washington that the Europeans were able and willing to respond to poor U.S. leadership in economic affairs. 16 The Franco-German proposal was thrashed out and finally approved at the European Council summit in Brussels in December of The EMS, which began operation in March 1979, established an exchange rate mechanism using a parity grid and a divergence indicator based on the European currency unit (ecu), an artificial unit of account made up of a basket of participating currencies weighted according to their values. Currencies were allowed to fluctuate against each other within a band of plus or minus 2.5 percent of their value. Finance ministers and central bankers would have to agree on 36 Yale Journal of International Affairs

39 Shared Sovereignty in the european union changes in parity. 17 The primary purpose of the EMS was, according to Andrew Moravcsik, to dampen DM appreciation by helping weak currency countries impose macroeconomic discipline rather than either devalue or impose trade restrictions. Schmidt argued to skeptics that they should view EMS in the political context of the next fifteen to twenty years. For Schmidt and Giscard d Estaing the EMS was laying the foundation of a European economy that would be less vulnerable to outside shocks. They hoped that the new system would enable Germany to stem the tendency of the mark to overshoot in value and that it would provide the franc with a potential frame for austerity. If it served these purposes, it would be useful economically and politically. 18 The Single European Act By 1985 most governments in the European Community wanted to expand economic integration to revitalize the organization. The EMS had achieved some success in coordinating monetary policy, but the leaders of all governments recognized that it needed to be extended to a full monetary union to be effective. The obvious next step was deeper market integration to complete the common market that had been the stated goal of the 1957 ECC Treaty. At this point Jacques Delors was appointed President of the European Commission in January 1985 to activate a program of deeper integration. The former finance minister of France, Delors was a master bureaucrat with a vision for an activist Europe. For him the single market was a step toward full monetary union, a reformed budget, and a broad charter of social rights. In March the European Council agreed in principle to the creation of a single market, and in December it agreed on the text of the Single European Act amending the Treaty of Rome. 19 The Single European Act committed the member states to create a fully integrated internal market by the end of The nine states of the European Community would become an area in which persons, goods and capital shall move freely under conditions identical to those obtaining within a Member State. The removal of all barriers to trade would create economies of scale and cheaper goods for consumers inside the community. The same efficiencies would make EC products more competitive in external trade. The act called in general terms for expanded political coordination and institutional reform, and it strongly implied the creation of a monetary union as a complementary step. Most significantly, it extended qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers so that it would require a minimum of three states to block a proposal. This action promised to speed up the decision making process and represented a major increase in shared sovereignty. 20 Spring Summer

40 Sherril Brown Wells & Samuel F. Wells, JR. German leaders played a crucial role in shaping the Single European Act. The EMS had basically committed German policymakers to creating a single economic space in a Europe based on mutually contingent, parallel macroeconomic management. Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the foreign minister in various coalition governments from , was a steadfast advocate of increased European integration as an essential means of achieving the related goals of German and Western European prosperity and security and ultimately German and European reunification. Helmut Kohl became German chancellor in October 1982 and reestablished European integration as his country s central priority. By presenting himself as Adenauer s grandson, Kohl reunited his party and coalition government behind the legacy of the postwar chancellor who had championed reconciliation with France and German integration with Europe. Genscher and Kohl, along with Italian leaders, showed a strong propensity to test the limits of European integration and push for significant renunciations of national sovereignty to Community institutions, argues Mark Gilbert. Germany, moreover, backed her rhetoric with hard cash. By allowing France to devalue the franc within the EMS and paying for the British budget rebate, Germany prevented these two more acrimonious partners from wrecking the Community altogether. 21 the European Monetary System had basically c o m m i t t e d G e r m a n policymakers to creating a single economic space in a Europe based on mutually conginent, parallel macroeconomic management. Toward Economic and Monetary Union As the detailed process of revising the laws and regulations to implement the Single European Act began in July 1987, significant political changes unfolded on the continent. The Cold War was winding down. Mikhail Gorbachev s reforms were opening Soviet society, and his negotiations with the western alliance started to produce results with the signing of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on December 8, The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, and the communist regimes of Eastern Europe collapsed in the following months. With these transformations in Central Europe, the unification of Germany became a pressing issue for the two German states and their four occupying powers. 22 Meanwhile pressure to create a monetary union to complement the single market began to build among business and political leaders in France, Italy, 38 Yale Journal of International Affairs

41 Shared Sovereignty in the european union and Germany. Both parties in the governing coalition in Germany, the Social Democrats and the Free Democrats, had advocated monetary union in their platforms since the 1970s. German business associations and trade unions also supported stronger monetary coordination. Former chancellor Helmut Schmidt and Valéry Giscard d Estaing had formed the Association for the Monetary Union of Europe in 1986 to lobby for the cause among bankers and business leaders. By 1987 French and Italian officials and business executives were pushing for monetary union because of the domestic costs of shadowing the deutsche mark within EMS. 23 In Bonn, Kohl and Genscher wanted to create monetary union, but they needed to avoid a public fight with the highly respected governing board of the Bundesbank, the German central bank led by its president Karl-Otto Pöhl. Bundesbank leaders and other German economists had traditionally followed an economist approach toward monetary union which called for a long gradual convergence of EC economies along with steps toward political union before monetary union should be established. An alternative school was the monetarist approach led by French central bank and treasury officials and by Jacques Delors and many of the Commission economists. This group argued that a new EC institution such as a common central bank could bring about economic convergence among members by changing market behavior. Based on the French experience in using the exchange-rate mechanism to deal with currency fluctuations after the oil embargo and other financial shocks, the monetarist persuaded the leaders of the Bundesbank to back an early move toward EMU. By the summer of 1988 the main forces were aligned to advance the case for monetary union. 24 Commission President Jacques Delors played the key role in shaping the way in which monetary union would be established. For some time Delors had believed that a common European currency was essential for the single market to function properly. He lobbied hard for monetary union by attending the monthly meetings of the committee of central bank governors, by courting and winning the support of Karl-Otto Pöhl of the Bundesbank, and by attending the meetings of the ministers of economics and finance of the EC as well as the meetings of the European Council. With strong support from Helmut Kohl, the European Council in June 1988 created a special committee to explore the timing and form of economic and monetary union and named Delors to head this committee. The Delors Committee was composed of the heads of the central banks, one commissioner from the European Commission, and three independent experts all acting in personal capacities. The group analyzed prior studies of monetary union such as the Werner Report of 1970, and their final product contained many of its recommendations. In Spring Summer

42 Sherril Brown Wells & Samuel F. Wells, JR. April 1989 the committee presented the Delors Report which proposed a three-staged approach to monetary union and argued that such union was needed in order to prevent currency fluctuations from undermining market unification. Their deeper, implied argument was political: by pooling sovereignty in economic areas, European monetary union would create a huge leap forward in integration within the EC. The Madrid summit of June 1989 endorsed the Delors Report as a blueprint for action, and it became the document over which the intergovernmental conference would negotiate in shaping the Maastricht Treaty. With this accomplishment Delors had made his most important contribution to the process of economic and monetary union, and in the process he had incorporated the goals of the Bundesbank and the German model of monetary policy into the proposals of the Delors Committee. 25 The Maastricht Treaty and EMU After the acceptance of the Delors Report in mid-1989, rapid changes swept Europe. During the fall western observers saw the collapse of the Berlin Wall followed by replacement of the communist governments across Eastern Europe. After intense two plus four negotiations among the two German states and the occupying powers, German unification occurred in October Soon thereafter new countries ranging from Finland and Austria among the neutrals to Cyprus and Malta in the Mediterranean applied for EC membership. The leaders of the European Community agreed that it was necessary to move quickly to strengthen integration before considering adding new members, especially those from former command economies. But mindful of the uncertain future facing Europe, many other leaders wanted to move cautiously on any steps that required giving up national sovereignty The heads of government of the EC member states met in the Dutch city of Maastricht in December 1991 to consider reports from the two intergovernmental conferences which had been working for a year shaping recommendations on political union and economic and monetary union respectively. During the course of the intense and wide-ranging negotiations at the summit, the recommendations on political union were greatly watered down. At British insistence all references to federalism were removed as was the social charter setting out regulations for labor and human rights. Several other states joined Britain in insisting on putting the recommendations on foreign and security policy as well as those on justice and home affairs outside the normal EC decision structure in separate pillars for intergovernmental decision, i.e. decision by the heads of government meeting as the European Council. 27 For the advocates of increased European integration such as Helmut Kohl of Germany and François Mitterrand of France the painful concessions made on Yale Journal of International Affairs

43 Shared Sovereignty in the european union political union made it all the more important to achieve effective economic and monetary union. This was essentially accomplished as the leaders agreed to create a monetary union through stages that would lead to the creation of a single currency and a central bank. Progress toward these goals would be determined by the speed with which a majority of states met four strict criteria of economic performance on inflation, government deficits, overall debt, and currency stability. The final implementation of economic and monetary union was projected for January Despite the compromises made the general tone at the conclusion of the Maastricht summit was positive. While the advocates of deeper European union were disappointed by what they had been able to achieve on the political side, they were pleased with their accomplishments on monetary union. Even then it must be noted that the terms of EMU were not what economic theorists had projected as their goal during the 1950s and 1960s. This union, called an economic and monetary union, was in fact confined to monetary policy and did not cover budgetary or fiscal policies. The leaders of the member states were not prepared to sacrifice control over budgets or tax policy just as they were not prepared to give up control over foreign and security policy or justice and home affairs. In today s world, this asymmetrical EMU supranational monetary policy and national fiscal and budgetary policy seems still to offer an acceptable half-way house between national sovereignty and European supranational sovereignty over economic and monetary matters. But for a group of nations which fifty years before had just concluded a long war stretching across several continents, monetary union remained a significant accomplishment. 29 Conclusion Recent scholarship has put to rest the widely accepted interpretation from the 1990s that German unification came about as a result of a high-politics bargain in which Kohl accepted the abolition of the deutsche mark and the end of Bundesbank autonomy in exchange for Britain s and France s acceptance of Germany s unification. 30 " As mentioned earlier, German leaders, political parties, business associations, and labor unions accepted the logic and desirability of economic and monetary union by the mid-1980s. All that remained to be negotiated were the criteria and the timing, and these were worked out in the Delors Report of April 1989, some months before German unification became an immediate issue. The German government did not give away the deutsche mark, argues Markus Jachtenfuchs, but it advocated EMU because it corresponded to its political vision of the European Union and at the same time served German business interests. 31 Spring Summer

44 Sherril Brown Wells & Samuel F. Wells, JR. In summary, Germany s most important element of national power is its strong export-driven economy. From the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, German leaders understood that their nation s future prospects were tied to its development of close ties with its western neighbors. With the creation of the ECSC and the approval of the Treaties of Rome, Konrad Adenauer and his successors knew that their nation s future lay with the European Community. By the 1970s Germany wanted economic coordination with Europe to move beyond a customs union and was prepared to take the lead with French leaders in creating the EMS. German commitment to deeper European integration came during the 1980s. The shared vision of Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand for expanded integration drove Europe forward after a period of institutional stasis. The presence of Jacques Delors as the concert master at the head of the European Commission made certain that preparations for EMU and political union would be made carefully and thoroughly. Reform in the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War accelerated progress. At Maastricht and beyond, German leaders sought deeper political union than their partners would accept, and they were prepared to go much further in sharing sovereignty in foreign and security policy, justice and home affairs, and increasing the power of the European Parliament. 32 By the time of reunification, Germany had fully cast its lot in a security partnership with its European Union partners and the United States, and the primary focus of its economic and political policies operated through the European Union in Brussels. By pooling its sovereignty in European economic and, to a lesser degree, political institutions, Germany has followed a very different road from the one predicted by any form of realist theory. It had chartered a new course with a new unprecedented form of multinational institution, the European Union. Y -Mitch Yoshida served as lead editor for this article. NOTES 1 Peter Katzenstein, Taming of Power: German Unification, , in Meredith Woo-Cumings and Michael Loriaux, eds., Past as Prelude: History in the Making of a New World Order (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1993), John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), 21. Also see John J. Mearsheimer, Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War, Atlantic (August, 1990), 35-50; and Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War, International Security, 15 (Summer, 1990), Sherrill Brown Wells, Pioneers of European Integration and Peace, (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin s, 2007), Quoted in François Duchêne, Jean Monnet: The First Statesman of Interdependence (New York: W.W. Norton, 1994), Jean Monnet, interview in Le Monde, June 16, 1955, quoted in Wells, Pioneers of European Integration, Duchêne, Monnet, ; Hans-Peter Schwarz, Konrad Adenauer, vol. 1 (Providence: Berghahn Books, 1995), ; French summary of Adenauer-Monnet meeting, Bonn, May 23, 1950, quoted in Wells, Pioneers of European Integration, 42 Yale Journal of International Affairs

45 Shared Sovereignty in the european union 7 Thomas A. Schwartz, America s Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), ; Wells, Pioneers of European Integration, 12; Schwarz, Adenauer, vol. 1, Duchêne, Monnet, Jean Monnet, Memoirs (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978), ; Duchêne, Monnet, ; Schwarz, Adenauer, vol. 1, Schwarz, Adenauer, vol. 1, ; Desmond Dinan, Europe Recast: A History of European Integration (Boulder, Col.: Lynne Rienner, 2004), 57-61; Jean-Pierre Rioux, The Fourth Republic, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), ; John Gillingham, Coal, Steel, and the Rebirth of Europe, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), ; Duchêne, Monnet, Anthony Eden, Full Circle: The Memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden (London: Cassell, 1960), ; Schwarz, Adenauer, vol. 2, ; Rioux, Fourth Republic, ; Ernest R. May, The American Commitment to Germany, , in Lawrence S. Kaplan, ed., American Historians and the Atlantic Alliance (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991), Dinan, Europe Recast, 63-70; Andrew Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998), ; Mark Gilbert, Surpassing Realism: The Politics of European Integration since 1945 (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), Gilbert, Surpassing Realism, 65-83; Dinan, Europe Recast, 66-75; Adenauer s directive of January 19, 1956, quoted in Wells, Pioneers of European Integration, Derek W. Urwin, The Community of Europe: A History of European Integration Since 1945 (London: Longman, 1991), 75-84; Dinan, Europe Recast, Wells, Pioneers of European Integration, 30-42; Desmond Dinan, Building Europe: The European Community and the Bonn-Paris-Washington Relationship, , in Helga Haftendorn et al., eds., The Strategic Triangle: France, Germany, and the United States in the Shaping of the New Europe (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2006), 29-51; Michael Kreile, The Search for a New Monetary System: Germany s Balancing Act, in Haftendorn, Strategic Triangle, Gilbert, Surpassing Realism, ; Dinan, Europe Recast, Dinan, Europe Recast, Moravcsik, Choice for Europe, 253; Gilbert, Surpassing Realism, Kenneth Dyson and Kevin Featherstone, The Road to Maastricht: Negotiating Economic and Monetary Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), ; Dinan, Europe Recast, ; Derek W. Urwin, The Community of Europe: A History of European Integration Since 1945, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1995), , Urwin, Community of Europe, 2nd ed., Carl Lankowski, Germany: Transforming Its Role, in E.E. Zeff and E.B. Pirro, eds., The European Union and the Member States (Boulder, Col.: Lynne Rienner, 2006), 35-38; Desmond Dinan on Genscher and Wilie Paterson on Kohl in Desmond Dinan, ed., Encyclopedia of the European Union (Boulder, Col.: Lynne Rienner, 1998), 251, 318; Dyson and Featherstone, Road to Maastricht, ; Gilbert, Surpassing Realism, Samuel F. Wells, Jr., From Euromissiles to Maastricht: The Policies of Reagan-Bush and Mitterrand, in Haftendorn, Strategic Triangle, ; Dinan, Europe Recast, Markus Jachtenfuchs, Germany and Relaunching Europe, in Haftendorn, Strategic Triangle, , 323; Dinan, Europe Recast, ; Gilbert, Surpassing Realism, Dyson and Featherstone, Road to Maastricht, Amy Verdun, A Historical Institutionalist Analysis of the Road to Economic and Monetary Union: A Journey with Many Crossroads, in Sophie Meunier and Kathleen R. McNamara, eds., Making History: European Integration and Institutional Change at Fifty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 203; Gilbert, Surpassing Realism, 189; George Ross, Jacques Delors, in Dinan, Encyclopedia of the EU, 126; Amy Verdun, European Responses to Globalization and Financial Market Integration: Perceptions of Economic and Monetary Union in Britain, France, and Germany (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 2000), 80-82; Dyson and Featherstone, Road to Maastricht, , , Urwin, Community of Europe, 2nd ed., Urwin, Community of Europe, 2nd ed., Urwin, Community of Europe, 2nd ed., Verdun, A Historical Institutionalist Analysis, Jachtenfuchs, Germany and Relaunching Europe, 311; see also Joseph M. Grieco, State Interests and institutional rule trajectories: A Neorealist interpretation of the Maastricht Treaty and European economic and monetary union, in Benjamin Frankel, ed., Realism: Restatements and Renewal (London, Frank Cass, 1996), Jachtenfuchs, Germany and Relaunching Europe, ; Jeffrey Legro and Andrew Moravcsik, Is Anybody Still a Realist?, October 1998 (Working Papers, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University), ciaonet.org/wps/loj Simon J. Bulmer, Shaping the Rules? The Constitutive Politics of the European Union and German Power, in Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., Tamed Power: Germany in Europe (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997), Spring Summer

46 Georgian Foreign Policy Interview with Ambassador Irakli Alasania On March 4, 2008 Georgia s Ambassador to the United Nations Irakli Alasania, met with YJIA Editors William Ko and Alexander Besant to discuss contemporary issues in Georgian foreign policy, as well as Georgia s agenda in the 20th NATO Summit in Bucharest, Romania. What are Georgia s foreign policy objectives? How does your government intend to realize them? Our foreign policy objectives are very transparent. Georgia, being a small country, benefits most by having an honest and straightforward position on regional security issues. For us, the number one priority is the territorial integrity of Georgia and to get as much international support to implement meaningful change in the conflict zones of South Ossetia and Abkhazia change that is oriented towards producing results. We have IDP (Internally Displaced Person) problems due to the ethnic cleansing that has occurred. The central priority for us is sustained peace and the international community s support in this process. Of course, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and Euro-Atlantic integration is another priority. We joined this intensive dialogue, which is another step for Georgian integration into the alliance in Three weeks ago, together with Ukraine, we applied for the Membership Action Plan (MAP) for NATO. We are going through drastic changes in our military and security fields, steps which are required to meet NATO standards. What is also very important is that we are providing security for NATO in Afghanistan and the Balkans, and we are also part of the anti-terror coalition in Iraq in fact, after the United States and the United Kingdom, Georgia ranks third in the highest percentage of troops committed to the efforts in Iraq. This clearly declares that Georgia intends to join the Euro-Atlantic community because we share their members values. 44 Yale Journal of International Affairs

47 Georgian Foreign Policy Another priority is regional security. We are developing a joint partnership with Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Armenia. We are also working with Ukraine to synchronize our foreign and regional policies. We are part of the European Neighbourhood Policy. Lately, our relationship with Russia has been quite low. With the new mandate of our president, we are trying to re-engage in positive dialogue with the Russians. A few weeks ago, there was a meeting between our president and President Vladimir Putin. That is a start to square things out. Will the election of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev change the trajectory of Georgian-Russian relations? In general, I don t foresee any changes in Russian foreign or domestic policy after this election. I think they will remain the same as under President Putin. But I envision a change leading to re-engagement between Russia and Georgia, which is in I would highlight U.S.- G e o r g i a n re l a t i o n s, which is the role model for how a superpower and a small country can be strategic allies. the better interests for both countries. In terms of regional interests, it is also good to focus on things that can be really beneficial: stability in the Caucasus especially in the North Caucasus, which is a ticking time bomb. It is in nobody s interest to have instability in this region, so I think there are sufficient grounds for cooperation. Separately, I would highlight U.S.-Georgian relations, which is the role model for how a superpower and a small country can be strategic allies. I think we have reached a point where we can now call each other allies. Of what significance to Georgia are Ukraine s relations with: the international community, the international organizations in question, and regional actors? Ukraine is a huge regional player with a big economy and big potential to be a larger regional player than it is now. The success of Georgia and the success of the Ukraine are not only the success of these nations but also the success of all post-soviet nations trying to break from the past. This is not just about Ukraine, but also about settling the last scores of the Cold War. After the Balkans, it is time to make post-soviet states truly free and independent This will serve as a role model for other post-soviet states to follow. This is why there is so much animosity towards these Georgian and Ukrainian initiatives from certain political elites in Moscow. Spring Summer

48 Irakli Alasania The non-binding referendum of Georgia s accession to NATO took place on January 5th, 2008, the same day as the Presidential elections. Incumbent President Mikheil Saakashvili, a proponent of NATO accession, won by a considerable margin of votes. Did the NATO platform secure Saakashvili s success? What were the other domestic policies debated between the candidates? Yes, it s true that NATO accession and Georgia s membership in the Euro- Atlantic community was on the ballot on January 5th. Yet, from the outset, let me note that Georgia s foreign policy is the one issue that has a broad consensus, both among Georgians and their politicians. That is why the turnout of that referendum was more than seventy percent. But I don t think it s the main reason why Saakashvili succeeded. I think, overall, during his first tenure as Georgia s President, there were a number of things really improved within the country. I can also speak of his shortcomings as well, but let s start with the fundamental reasons why the electorate chose Saakashivili. First, he really curbed corruption, which was the main issue in The fact that the credentials of a well-known politician like Eduard Shevardnadze, a Soviet minister and one of the architects of German unification, was forced to leave peacefully because of corruption shows how this issue was eating the country alive. So the first steps Saakashvili made was to clean up the government agencies. He raised salaries, tested new officials applying for jobs, and so on. And it was all done in an incredibly short period of time one year. The other thing that was important in the electoral campaign, and is a central issue to Georgians, is the territorial integrity of Georgia. Saakashvili based his pre-election strategy on this issue. Since 1993, the issue of territorial integrity has been a major problem in Georgian society and Saakashvili recently declared that his presidency is dedicated to the peaceful unification of Georgia. The other issue was that the opposition coalition was simply not acceptable for the majority of the population. Yes, members of the opposition were well-known to the public and some of their actions were appreciated, but there was nobody who was as young and charismatic as Saakashvili. At the same time, from the perspective of the opposition, Saakashvili, in 2003, enjoyed over ninety percent of the popular vote. Since then, due to the often painful reforms in the transition to a market economy, many felt that this change did not produce results fast enough. That is why popular support decreased to fifty-two percent. In Western Europe, fifty-two to fifty-three percent is normal but in Georgia, a forty percent decrease was really surprising for Saakashvili himself. 46 Yale Journal of International Affairs

49 Georgian Foreign Policy I think I would say that the coming parliamentary elections will prove to be very important. This is where we will really be tested and need to show the world that Georgia is really on the right track to democracy. This is why the OSCE s (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) criticism of the government s recent handling of elections was greatly appreciated. The Georgian government invited the OSCE to come to Georgia to discuss electoral improvement. The other thing is that there are bilateral talks with the opposition to have the constitutional amendments they were asking for. Nobody is happy with what happened in November. The President made it clear that it was not what he intended, but because he felt the threat from Russia was so great, it seemed as the only way out of the situation. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, in a speech at Tblisi State University on October 4, 2007, stated that the issues pertaining to the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia and its Partner countries in the Caucasus should be resolved with the OSCE and the UN, and not with NATO. He further stated that the Alliance does not seek stronger involvement and that the Georgian Government has made a number of concrete proposals to build confidence. What are these proposals? Yes, it is true that the conflicts in the Caucasus are discussed under the OSCE and UN forums. We don t see NATO as an instrument for the resolution of this conflict. We see NATO as a security arrangement for Georgia to develop stably. Under the UN, we launched a few initiatives, one of which was the comprehensive review of the settlement process, fourteen years after the end of the (Georgian-Abkhazian) conflict. But what we really want is to be able to assess: where do we stand? Why has this peace process never produced any results? Why was the majority of the population unable to return home after the ethnic cleansing? What are the sources of these problems is it the peace process? Or is it the actual Russian-led peace operations on the ground? We are looking forward to the results of this assessment, which will logically envisage how to improve this peace process. The other thing is that we are really changing our approach to the society within the conflict zone. This is a war-torn society. The majority within the society was ethnically cleansed and the majority of them were Georgians, as well as many other nationalities. We do think that the Georgian approach beforehand was not right. Isolating the societies in these parts of Georgia is not good because we are losing touch with them. We have a chance to develop with Europe and they need that chance as well. Keep in mind, however, that we cannot give the illusion that the separatist regime has legitimacy. Rather, Spring Summer

50 Irakli Alasania by working directly with the populace, we are showing that the Georgian government cares, and that the international community cares for them as well. This will bring confidence and trust. And then we can carry on with the peace process. Can Kosovo s independence affect the resolution process or jeopardize Georgia s territorial integrity? It made negotiations with the separatist regime quite difficult this past year. They were told that if Kosovo declared independence with unilateral recognition, they would have a chance to acquire independence as well. Of course, we should keep in mind that the cases of Kosovo and Abkhazia are completely different. One fact alone is more than sufficient to illustrate these differences: more than sixty-five percent of the Georgian population was ethnically cleansed by the separatist regime, and they are not allowing them to go back. Just mentioning this fact is enough for international lawyers and experts to understand how different things are from Kosovo. On Abkhazia and South Ossetia: "We have been living together since ancient times and we plan to keep it that way" At the same time, it was very difficult because Russia maintained this calculated policy of ambiguity regarding the independence movements of Kosovo and within Georgia. This gave the separatist regimes additional illusions about their chances for independence and acceptance within the international community. Now that it is all said and done, the realization within the separatist regimes is that their independence will not be recognized because of the huge humanitarian catastrophe. To what extent are the movements in Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia interrelated? They are very much related as they were inspired by the same power the Russian political and military elites of the late 1980s and early 1990s. So there are similarities on how these movements were encouraged. But there are also some differences. In Abkhazia, there was systematic and ethnic cleansing performed against the pre-dominant Georgian population in This region is mainly depopulated now. While in Tskhinvali, we have refugees, but we still have communities living together: Georgians and Ossetians who are trading together and finding common ground, while such is not the case in Abkhazia. Our policy of a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Abkhazia 48 Yale Journal of International Affairs

51 Georgian Foreign Policy envisages such people-to-people contact getting people together, doing business and commerce, and so on. It is about possible coexistence without shooting each other. These are the differences. These are two beautiful parts of Georgia where we have been living together since ancient times and we plan to keep it that way. Would Georgia's successful entry into NATO render it the only country in the Caucasus with membership or can we expect its neighbors to follow suit? At this point we are not only talking about Georgia but the Ukraine as well, which is another Black Sea country. With regards to the Caucasus, I know that Armenia and Azerbaijan are also actively involved in the Partnership for Peace with NATO. They are developing their relationship and are well on their way in this cooperation. We should assume that this process deepens cooperation within the Alliance, as well as between two Caucasian republics. What is helping a lot is that Georgia and Azerbaijan are involved in major energy projects in the Caucasus, linking Central Asian energy resources to Europe. We would like to see Armenia join in on this. We have gas and oil pipelines, railroad connections, and we hope that Armenia s participation in these projects will help them while aiding in regional stability. But don t bilateral Armenian-Azerbaijani relations have any effect on this process? Yes, it does, of course. I think there is an increased understanding within Armenian society that isolation from these projects is detrimental for everyone. Only integration and development can bring stability. Hopefully the talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan will bring results in the future. How would Georgia s NATO membership affect its relationship with Iran? We are enjoying very good relations with Iran. Iran is our historic neighbor for centuries, if not millennia. We have a common history. Even though we have different religious histories, we have a close culture in certain respects. Joining NATO does not mean that the relationship should worsen because we will manage the relationship in a way that will not be threatening. Moreover, NATO is already in the Caucasus in Turkey. Thus, I don t see why this would pose a problem. How does Georgia s NATO candidacy differ form the aspiring members in the Balkans, such as Albania and Macedonia? Spring Summer

52 Irakli Alasania They are in the more advanced phases of NATO membership. While we are aspiring to get acceptance into the MAP, they are already there waiting for the invitation to join the process. Every nation has its own unique process, but I think that the major trends are quite similar. They understand that joining the alliance is performance based. So we really want to work hard with the transformation of Georgia s institutions, the judiciary, law enforcement, security, and defence. So far, all the evaluations we have been getting from international experts and from NATO have been very positive. Are Saakashvili s chances of political success in Georgia inherently tied to the outcome of MAP? Mr. Saakashvili campaigned hard on NATO enlargement. There are various factors we should keep in mind. It is up to the allies when they will extend another stage of enlargement incorporating Georgia. So no matter how things go in Bucharest, we should not be discouraged. We should continue on the path that Saakashvili has envisaged and, as I mentioned, more than 70% of the population aspires for the same. Yes, the rhetoric was high during the reelection campaign, and the President plans to follow-up on that, naturally. So the outcome of the 20th NATO Summit in Bucharest will have no immediate bearing on Georgian strategic initiatives with the West? The value of this integration is the process itself because within this process we are making our institutions more sustainable, more workable, and stronger. Whether it s the Bucharest Summit or any other summit, it really doesn t matter. Of course, the expectations are high now, as recent evaluations provide sufficient grounds to believe that Georgia should be invited into the MAP. Nevertheless, if it is postponed, it will not change our policies at all. Y 50 Yale Journal of International Affairs

53 Shame Without End: Darfur and "the Responsibility to Protect" B y Eric Reeve s In March 2004, at the height of the most violent phase of the Darfur genocide, Mukesh Kapila approached the end of his yearlong tenure as United Nations (UN) humanitarian coordinator for Sudan. He used the occasion to make a series of extraordinary and institutionally unconstrained comments: The only difference between Rwanda and Darfur now is the numbers involved...[the violence in Darfur] is more than just a conflict, it is an organized attempt to do away with a group of people. 1 Despite transparently mendacious claims by the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum in early February 2004 that it had brought the situation in Darfur under total military control, Kapila insisted, for all who would listen that, The pattern of organized attacks on civilians and villages, abductions, killings and organized rapes by militias is getting worse by the day and could deteriorate even further. 2 Four years on, there has been no prompt action; Kapila s ominous premonition has come fully to pass. What is less widely known than these frequently cited remarks is that behind the scenes, Kapila had been carrying the same message to senior UN and UK officials for months. He went public with his assessment because he no longer had to fear for his job, and because despite his urgent warnings, the UN was not responding. We know from Kapila s extensive testimony before a British Parliamentary committee, and from comments reported in October 2006 by The Times, what he had been saying for months prior to March 2004, and how his warnings were received: There was a fundamental feeling among very senior people that Darfur was a very inconvenient development and they would rather not know about it. 3 Eric Reeves is a professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College and has written extensively on Sudan. Spring Summer

54 Eric Reeves What we are seeing today in Darfur is a product of this feeling that genocide in a remote, arid, impoverished, and geopolitically inconsequential region of Africa is simply inconvenient." Rather than confront the difficult challenges in halting vast, ethnically targeted human destruction, all international actors of consequence settled for political and diplomatic half-measures, or merely symbolic measures. This has too often allowed, for convenience, the crisis to be defined as essentially humanitarian in nature, with an overlay of unfortunate tribal conflicts animated by competition for diminishing natural resources. Yet this gross misrepresentation of the catastrophe still finds an audience in many quarters, as the desire to ignore the urgency of Darfur s crisis, and its political and historical origins, overwhelms the need to look honestly at what is happening. What are the consequences of five years of looking at Darfur chiefly as a political and diplomatic inconvenience, most conspicuously during the final stages of Sudan s North-South Naivasha peace negotiations in 2004, a year that was perhaps the most destructive of human life and livelihood in the entire course of the Darfur genocide? UN aid chief Jan Egeland stated in his August 28, 2006 briefing to the UN Security Council:...insecurity is at its highest levels since 2004; access at its lowest levels since that date; and we may well be on the brink of a return to all-out war...i cannot give a starker warning than to say that we are at a point where even hope may escape us and the lives of hundreds of thousands could be needlessly lost. 4 More than a year and a half later, there is still no significant action of the sort the UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs called for; humanitarian organizations continue to withdraw or severely contract their operations; malnutrition is rising for the first time since major humanitarian deployment; both Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UN Head of Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Marie Guéhenno have recently reported that security has declined significantly in recent months; and civilians in Darfur and eastern Chad are on the verge of cataclysmic destruction. There have been many UN Security Council resolutions addressing the Darfur catastrophe; all of them have been ignored or flouted by Khartoum; most notably the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1706 on August 31, 2006, under Chapter VII authority of the UN Charter, which authorized 22,500 civilian police and troops and provided a clear and robust mandate for civilian and humanitarian protection. Significantly, Resolution 1706 also provided for the monitoring of Sudan s borders with Chad and the Central African Republic, neighboring countries into which Darfur s genocidal destruction continues to bleed in highly destabilizing fashion. 52 Yale Journal of International Affairs

55 Shame without End But Khartoum appears to have simply refused to accept the UN force. This failure of an authorized UN peace support operation to deploy is without precedent in the history of the organization. For almost a year, Khartoum s defiant refusal to accept the UN mission allowed insecurity to increase dramatically. The weak African Union monitoring force on the ground was hopelessly under-equipped, under-manned, and without an appropriate mandate. It was unable to protect itself, let alone civilians in the camps holding some 2.5 million people, or rural areas still subject to Arab militia predations and attacks by Khartoum s regular military forces. Most of those in the camps are women and children, and as a recent Amnesty International report makes clear, 5 these populations, some of which have endured camp life for over four years, are falling into desperation. The camps are transforming into increasingly seething cauldrons of rage and despair; they are awash with weapons, and the authority of traditional leaders the sheiks and omdas is being lost to angry young men with weapons. The African Union mission lost the confidence of these people, and today peacekeepers are at risk if they enter most camps. the African Union mission lost the confidence of these people, and today peacekeepers are at risk if they enter most camps. The African Union (AU) mission was burdened by crippling restrictions imposed by Khartoum, and political cowardice on the part of AU leaders who refused to confront Khartoum over the lack of a civilian protection mandate and the regime s ongoing policy of harassment and obstruction. It was during this time of African Union deployment that violence in Darfur became overwhelmingly chaotic, particular after the signing of the poorly conceived and disastrously consummated Darfur Peace Agreement of May Rebel groups factionalized, and banditry and opportunistic violence exploded in a land without meaningful authority. In July 2007, the UN Security Council passed another resolution on Darfur that was nominally acceptable to the Khartoum regime because it was a hybrid UN/African Union operation. In fact, this hybridization has proved a disaster and the major reason the mission is failing. Resolution 1769, which only had the qualified support of Security Council permanent member China, authorized the deployment of 26,000 troops and civilian police with a Chapter VII mandate for civilian and humanitarian protection. But nine long months after the passage of Resolution 1769, there has been no meaningful deployment of the personnel or resources necessary for the mission to function as planned. As a consequence, security continues to deteriorate. Spring Summer

56 Eric Reeves Khartoum s obstructionist tactics have crippled planning efforts and blocked the deployment of key elements of engineering and rapid-response teams. Khartoum has also prevented, without evident fear of consequence, construction of barracks and infrastructure necessary for this complex mission. In turn the failure of militarily capable Western nations to provide the critically necessary transport and tactical helicopters has made Khartoum s efforts all too easy. A grim truth continues to define Darfur, however inconvenient: UN forces authorized by the Security Council, both in August 2006 and again in July 2007, represented the potential for saving hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, if they had been rapidly deployed with adequate resources for military and security personnel. Instead, we have seen only obstructionism from the National Islamic Front génocidaires in Khartoum. These are the same men who over the past five years have relentlessly, systematically, and savagely targeted the non-arab or African tribal populations of Darfur as a means of crushing the insurgency that emerged in February History of the Conflict In considering these issues, it is important to take a closer look at the history of the conflict. Darfur s insurgency grew out of many years of acute economic and political marginalization of the African tribal populations of the regions, and a policy on Khartoum s part of asymmetrically arming Arab militia groups. This policy ultimately derived from the regime s desire to expand its narrow political base of support to the minority Arab populations of Darfur. Not directly related to the twenty-one year conflict in southern Sudan, the rebellion in Darfur found early and remarkable success against Khartoum s regular military forces. But this success had a terribly ominous consequence: the regime switched from a military strategy of direct confrontation to a policy of systematically destroying the African tribal groups perceived as the civilian base of support for the insurgents. The primary instrument in this new policy was the Janjaweed, a loosely organized Arab militia force of perhaps 30,000 men, primarily on horse and camel, though increasingly provided with motorized transport by Khartoum. The Janjaweed, while originating in the years before the insurgency war, was dramatically different in military strength and purpose from previous militia raiders. Khartoum ensured that the Janjaweed were extremely heavily armed, well-supplied, and actively coordinating with the regime s regular 54 Yale Journal of International Affairs

57 Shame without End ground and air forces. Indeed, Human Rights Watch obtained in July 2004 confidential Sudanese government documents that directly implicated highranking government officials in a policy of support for the Janjaweed. Peter Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch s Africa Division, said at the time: It s absurd to distinguish between the Sudanese government forces and the militias they are one. These documents show that militia activity has not just been condoned, it s been specifically supported by Sudan government officials. An extensively researched Human Rights Watch report of December 2005 conclusively demonstrated that responsibility for Janjaweed recruitment, support, and military deployment goes to the very top of the National Islamic Front leadership, including President Omar al-bashir, Vice-President Ali Osman Taha, and security chief Saleh Abdalla "Gosh." These are the primary architects of the Darfur genocide. The nature of conflict and genocidal destruction in Darfur has changed significantly since the extraordinary levels of violence in , which saw eighty to ninety percent of all African villages in Darfur destroyed. 6 But what must not be forgotten is how comprehensively destructive village-assaults typically were, including demolishing or poisoning precious water wells and irrigation systems; destroying food- and seed-stocks, as well as agricultural implements and water vessels; cutting down mature fruit trees; and looting or killing livestock, often representing generations of family wealth. Such deliberately destructive violence, along with mass executions, the systematic and racialized use of rape as a weapon of war, torture, abduction, and other forms of violent abuse have produced the staggering numbers of deaths, displaced persons, and civilians who are now critically in need of humanitarian aid. But people are also dying from the disease and malnutrition that have come in the ghastly wake of these violent attacks. The 1948 UN Genocide Convention makes clear that these deaths are no less genocidal in nature: the deliberate, ethnically targeted destruction of livelihoods and the ability to live is also genocide. Article 2, clause C, of the 1948 Convention explicitly defines as genocidal those actions, deliberately inflicting on group[s] conditions of life calculated to bring about [their] physical destruction in whole or in part. 7 Why is it apparently irrelevant to Darfur that in April 2006 the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1674, which is explicitly framed so as to supersede claims of national sovereignty such as those Khartoum has so insistently made? This resolution explicitly reaffirms the provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the World Summit Outcome Document regarding Spring Summer

58 Eric Reeves the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. 8 The answer to this question says much about how the history of the Darfur genocide will be written in the coming years, a history that will lack neither detail, nor precise chronology, nor the clearest possible evidence of individual, institutional, and governmental responsibility. Certainly there has never in the history of genocide been such a fully documented episode of sustained, systematic, deliberate destruction of human beings on an ethnic basis, and this will inevitably be the most salient fact in the history that must be written. Darfur is the longest genocide of the past century. The Darfur Question the first and most essential part of any answer to the Darfur question lies in the nature of the brutal security cabal that rules in Khartoum The first and most essential part of any answer to the Darfur question lies in the nature of the brutal security cabal that rules in Khartoum, and continues to be accepted as a legitimate government; indeed it is dutifully referred to by the UN and other international actors as Sudan s Government of National Unity. But the National Islamic Front, which has innocuously and expediently renamed itself the National Congress Party, completely dominates the merely notional Government of National Unity and represents neither the people of southern Sudan, nor the people of Darfur, nor indeed any of Sudan s marginalized populations. The most senior political figures of the southern Sudan People s Liberation Movement (SPLM), essentially the Government of South Sudan, have repeatedly and explicitly called for deployment of UN forces, as has Minni Minawi, the ruthless rebel leader who signed the ill-fated Darfur Peace Agreement in May Minawi is nominally the fourth-ranking member of the Presidency in the Government of National Unity and the SPLM s Salva Kiir is First Vice-President; both are completely irrelevant. And in the camps of Darfur and in the diaspora, there is a virtually unanimous and desperate appeal for international intervention. Too often ignored in the deferential negotiations with the National Islamic Front, most prominently with President Omar al-bashir, is the history of this survivalist regime, which seized power by military coup in June of 1989, 56 Yale Journal of International Affairs

59 Shame without End deposing an elected government and deliberately aborting Sudan s most promising chance to negotiate a North-South peace since independence in During its nineteen years in power, the National Islamic Front has repeatedly had recourse to genocidal destruction as a domestic security policy. As longtime Sudan analyst Alex de Waal has declared of the actions of this regime in Darfur: This is not the genocidal campaign of a government at the height of its ideological hubris, as the 1992 jihad against the Nuba Mountains was, or coldly determined to secure natural resources, as when it sought to clear the oilfields of southern Sudan of their troublesome inhabitants. This is the routine cruelty of a security cabal, its humanity withered by years in power: it is genocide by force of habit. 9 Yet the international community conferred upon these long-term génocidaires the right to obstruct UN deployment of forces authorized to curtail ongoing genocidal destruction and Resolution 1706 of August 2006 was simply abandoned. Jan Pronk, the Secretary General s Special Representative for Sudan, capitulated before Khartoum s obdurate refusal to countenance the UN force authorized by the Security Council and announced that the woefully African Union mission in Darfur would continue to serve as the only source of security for the vast conflict-affected population of Darfur. This was sheer political expediency. There are now some 4.3 million civilians in a humanitarian theater the size of France, an area much larger and more desperate if we include eastern Chad. This is a population increasingly dependent upon humanitarian operations that are rapidly collapsing. In September 2006, Jan Egeland described these operations as being in free fall. 10 In the many intervening months there have been increasingly numerous and desperate communications from humanitarian workers in the field. These are extraordinarily courageous people who often feel as abandoned as the civilians of Darfur, and only marginally less endangered. Huge areas of Darfur are either totally inaccessible or only tenuously accessible; the areas of inaccessibility grow steadily greater as violence becomes more chaotic. A recent report by Human Rights Watch argued that Khartoum, continues to stoke the chaos [in Darfur] and, in some areas, exploit intercommunal tensions that escalate into open hostilities, apparently in an effort to divide and rule and maintain military and political dominance over the region. 11 Khartoum s more direct military campaign continues to be defined by ongoing indiscriminate aerial bombardment of villages and civil- Spring Summer

60 Eric Reeves ian targets, and the use of Janjaweed militias as a weapon of war throughout Darfur, particularly in West Darfur and South Darfur. China has done most to insulate Khartoum from greater pressure imposed by the UN Security Council. Yet the United States and Europe have failed to convince this potent but callous veto-wielding Security Council member that Darfur matters enough. They have failed to expend the necessary diplomatic and political capital to make Darfur a truly first-tier international issue. The Arab League has gone through the motions of encouraging Khartoum to accept the UN/African Union hybrid force, but has made clear that it will exert no meaningful pressure on Khartoum. The African Union, which in 2006 announced its inability to continue viably in Darfur, also refuses to confront Khartoum, even as its troops make up the bulk of the approximately 9,000 troops on the ground in Darfur. These peacekeepers are no more capable now, despite the UN blue berets they began wearing on January 1, An almost complete lack of political and moral courage on the part of the UN Secretariat completes the picture of international impotence. Egeland s grim prediction of hundreds of thousands of Darfuri civilians dying needlessly is now being realized as malnutrition continues to grow following the disastrous harvests of this past fall. Given the present level of mortality (which, on the basis of all extant evidence, may be estimated at approximately half a million human beings), the overall death toll could exceed one million following the hunger gap of next summer. Because Khartoum refuses to permit the necessary gathering of data and has created intolerable security risks for the last mortality study, it is almost impossible to arrive at any authoritative figure for overall mortality. There appear to be few encouraging signs without a fundamental change in the security dynamic on the ground in Darfur. Such change will require ending the current diplomatic stalemate at the UN and, particularly, the Chinese role in this stalemate. Without such fundamental change, a remorseless genocide by attrition may continue indefinitely, ultimately assuring Khartoum of a ghastly military victory. The shameful truth is that we have ended up confronting a terrible symmetry. For while the political reality is clear the UN has to date shown no political will to make the responsibility to protect a reality in Darfur so too is the moral reality. We have seen genocide proceed for five years, yet we have refused to do what is necessary to halt the ultimate human crime. 58 Yale Journal of International Affairs

61 Shame without End The consequences of lacking a standing international force under UN auspices and control are clear in Darfur, where it appears that a ruthless regime of génocidaires can insulate itself from international action simply by claiming "national sovereignty". A Genocide Convention that remains impotent in the face of ongoing, fully reported genocidal destruction will mark in us nothing but the deepest hypocrisy.y -Sinead Hunt served as lead editor for this article. NOTES 1 Sudan: Darfur is World s Greatest Humanitarian Disaster, Says UN Official, UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, March 22, Ibid. My emphasis. 3 Is there blood on his hands? The Sunday Times, October 1, Jan Egeland, Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefing before UN Security Council Consultation on the humanitarian situation in Darfur, August 28, Amnesty International Displaced in Darfur: A Generation of Anger, January This is the consensus range among my many contacts in the Darfuri diaspora 7 Article 2, clause [c] of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide 8 UN Security Council Resolution 1674, April Alex de Waal, Counterinsurgency on the Cheap, London Review of Books, August Darfur in free fall as deadly violence escalates: Egeland, Agence France Presse, September 12, Human Rights Watch, Darfur 2007: Chaos by Design, September 2007 Spring Summer

62 De Facto Statehood? The Strange Case of Somaliland Statehood and Sovereignty B y Alexis Arieff A self-declared state that rose from the ashes of Somalia seventeen years ago, Somaliland has established a functioning government, held a series of ostensibly national elections, recruited and trained a uniformed military, and built strong relationships with regional governments and international bodies. These developments have led some American officials to re-evaluate their stance toward Somaliland against a backdrop of worsening security in southern Somalia and the prerogatives of defense cooperation in the Horn of Africa. Consequently, it is crucial to assess Somaliland s international status and diplomatic ties in the context of evolving international standards of statehood and the shifting geopolitical terrain of the United States War on Terror. Somaliland presents a stark illustration of the mismatch between internationally recognized sovereignty and what might be called stateness 1 meaning de facto ability of a governing authority to exert control over its territory internally and protect it against external threats. Nowhere is this disconnect more evident than in sub-saharan Africa, a region where state boundaries have remained largely untouched since decolonization. Nevertheless, governments remain unable, in most cases, to enforce territorial control, as the proliferation of non-state armed groups challenging the state s monopoly on violence attests. 2 In part, this phenomenon can be traced to the Cold War, a time when Africa fit into the superpowers strategic contest insofar as individual African states professed an actual or potential allegiance to one side or the other in the great game of global domination. 3 In this zerosum bipolar territorial game, 4 it served no one s interests to point out how little power many governments held over their own people. As Brennan M. 60 Alexis Arieff graduated from the Yale International Relations program in May 2008 with a focus in Security Studies and African Studies. She will commence on a Fulbright Fellowship in Guinea to research contemporary African-American military relations. Yale Journal of International Affairs

63 Kraxberger has written: Indeed, it was during the Cold War that the United Nations intensified the promotion of territorial conservatism and the Organization of African Unity worked to defend the inviolability of inherited colonial boundaries in Africa... In previous historical periods, failing states would have disappeared or been swallowed by a more powerful neighbor. 5 De Facto Statehood? The preservation of territorial integrity is a broadly accepted tenet of international law, known as the principle of uti possidetis juris. This concept underlies the UN Charter 6 and has been particularly important in post-colonial African politics, forming the basis of the 1964 Cairo Declaration (a key document of the Organization of African Unity) 7 and the Constitutive Act of the African Union, which replaced the OAU in While there have been some precedents for the recognition of breakaway African states, notably Western Sahara 9 and Eritrea, 10 in practice, recognition in Africa, as elsewhere, has flowed from geo-strategic considerations rather than legal reasoning. 11 This has placed Somaliland in a state of international limbo, while preserving the fiction of greater Somalia s statehood. Somaliland: An Introduction On May 18, 1991, amid the disintegration of Somalia s central government, leaders of the Somali National Movement (SNM) a rebel army that had fought the Somali government for nearly a decade and a group of northern traditional clan elders gathered in the northwestern Somali town of Burao 12 and declared the independence of the Republic of Somaliland. Mohamed Siad Barre, who had ruled Somalia since taking power in a 1969 military coup, had fled the capital, Mogadishu, months earlier, leaving behind chaos as rival clan-based militia battled for control over the southern half of the country. 13 Throughout the 1990s, as a viable Somali national political order failed to emerge, a number of territories within Somalia s borders declared themselves independent or autonomous political units. This balkanization along clan lines by competing warlords resulted in the establishment of precarious administrations such as Puntland (incorporating five smaller regions in northeast Somalia, and encompassing areas dominated by the Darood and Harti clan families), Jubbaland (the region around Kismayo port, south of Mogadishu), Benadirland (around Mogadishu), and Hiranland (in central Somalia). 14 Only Somaliland, in Somalia s northeast, has endured as a self-proclaimed independent country. Since its inception, Somaliland has established Spring Summer

64 Alexis Arieff a relatively high degree of internal order and stability, and has successfully restructured its political institutions along democratic lines. Unlike the rulers of other self-described polities, Somaliland s leaders have refused to participate in a succession of internationally-backed mediation efforts aimed at instilling a durable political system in Somalia and reconstructing a central government. 15 The most recent iteration of these efforts culminated in 2004 with the formation of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), a coalition which remains the internationally recognized government of Somalia despite having little claim to territorial sovereignty. 16 Nearly seventeen years after its declaration of independence, Somaliland fulfills the broad criteria of statehood under the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, defined by the following parameters: a permanent population; a defined territory; a government; and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. 17 S o m a l i l a n d f u l f i l l s the broad criteria of statehood under the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States. The population of Somaliland is estimated at over three million permanent inhabitants. 18 Somaliland s territorial boundaries conform to those received at independence from Great Britain in 1960, and its government is both functional and effectively in control of most of the territory to which it lays claim. The administration in Somaliland s capital, Hargeisa, is widely acknowledged both domestically and internationally, with no significant rival factions challenging its claim to be the voice of Somaliland s population; elected and appointed officials fill positions including the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior, and Finance. 19 The Somaliland government engages in an array of relations with states and intergovernmental organizations, with which it has entered into cooperative agreements regarding aid, elections monitoring, security and counter-terrorism, trade, and immigration. However, no country has officially recognized Somaliland as a state, despite an active and ongoing campaign by the Somaliland authorities. 20 The recognition of new states is governed not solely by international law, but by a complex calculus of factors that include... the self-interest of other states, politics, personality, and strategic considerations including the management or prevention of conflict. 21 As one scholar has indicated, at stake in Somaliland is not just government recognition (i.e., the recognition by other states that the Somaliland government is a legitimate authority and can make credible commitments on behalf of its population), but also, and more fun- 62 Yale Journal of International Affairs

65 De Facto Statehood? damentally, state recognition, as the international community continues to insist that Somalia (encompassing Somaliland s territory) persists as a state despite the dissolution of all functional mechanisms of its government. 22 This lack of recognition is more than a formality: Somaliland stands as proof that beyond a mere acknowledgment of facts on the ground, recognition by other states is an additional, and usually decisive, criterion of statehood. 23 Without international recognition, Somaliland s government 24 cannot benefit from bilateral aid or receive loans from the International Monetary Fund or World Bank. Somaliland cannot become a party to international treaties. Furthermore, the area s formal classification as part of Somalia has handicapped economic development and trade, as foreign investors are reluctant to become involved in a territory ostensibly located within a failed state and war-zone. With no functioning central authority in Mogadishu, investors have little legal recourse under international law, nor are they able to obtain business insurance at rates reflecting Somaliland s relative stability and safety. 25 Somaliland s economy and government revenues depend in large part on livestock exports; however, government-issued veterinary certificates are not internationally recognized. 26 Somaliland s Central Bank cannot issue letters of credit, and while Somaliland has had its own currency since 1994, it is not accepted outside of the country, and even most large transactions within the country are conducted in US dollars. 27 Somalilanders living abroad find themselves in the same administrative void that applies to all singlenationality Somalis: most countries recognize only Somali passports issued before 1991 by the former government, despite the fact that their validity has since expired. Members of the Somali diaspora who are not naturalized citizens of another country or traveling with UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) documents are thus in an illegal situation without the possibility of regularization. 28 Not a single country officially recognizes Somaliland government-issued passports (though at least two have tacitly agreed to do so). 29 Nevertheless, Somaliland s authorities are expected to shoulder some of the international burdens of statehood, notably by cooperating with international efforts to repatriate Somali refugees. The UNHCR has supervised the return of over 200,000 refugees from Ethiopia and Djibouti, 30 and European countries including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark have denied asylum to, and repatriated, Somalilanders on the grounds that their homeland is safe all the while refusing to recognize a distinction between Somaliland and Somalia. 31 Somaliland s claims to statehood, as put forward by its international repre- Spring Summer

66 Alexis Arieff sentatives, and in a 2001 government-issued policy document titled Somaliland: Demand for International Recognition, 32 rest on the principle of self-determination; Somaliland s colonial history; local grievances linked to past repression by central Somali authorities, in particular during the regime of Siad Barre; the government s ability to establish and enforce its territorial sovereignty; and its claim to majority support, good governance and a democratic polity. Given the discretion involved in international recognition, Somaliland s relations with interstate organizations (in particular the African Union, the United Nations, and the Arab League, of which Somalia is a member), other countries in the region, Europe, and the United States, are particularly significant in evaluating its international status. Somali society is based on kinship ties reflecting membership in clans genealogically traced to Arab ancestors. Within Somaliland s territory, the largest clan is the Isaaq. 33 Competition between clans and sub-clans determined the distribution of political power in pre-colonial Somalia at any given moment. 34 Seeking to describe Somalia s clan-based coalitions of convenience as units of political power, the scholar Martin Doornbos has written that Somalia constitutes a political arena rather than a nation per se (rebutting the assertion that Somalia is a nation in search of a state ) 35, in which actors in pursuit of their specific interests will continuously keep an eye on the strategies of their opponents. 36 In 1886, Great Britain established a protectorate in northern Somalia, installing a system of indirect rule. 37 By 1900, France had claimed French Somaliland (current-day Djibouti) and Italy had established a colony in the South, while Ethiopia expanded eastwards to assert sovereignty over the ethnically Somali Ogaden region. Italy established a colony in southern Somalia, with direct administration, Italian settlers, and, from the 1930s, elements of fascism. Britain s colony in Kenya, meanwhile, claimed ethnic Somali areas in the north (today s Northern Frontier District of Kenya, or NFD). Early Somali nationalism emerged in the twentieth century in opposition to colonial rule and partition. Pan-Somalism, which seeks to unite ethnic Somali populations throughout the Horn of Africa including those in eastern Ethiopia and northern Kenya under a single Somali state, rose to the forefront of political associations in North and South in the lead-up to independence, particularly given shared outrage over the 1954 Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty, which permitted Britain to cede parts of its Somali territory to Ethiopia. 38 British Somaliland became independent on June 26, 1960, while Italian Somalia became independent a day later. Thirty-five states recognized Somaliland s independence, including the United States, and its notification 64 Yale Journal of International Affairs

67 De Facto Statehood? was registered at the United Nations. 39 On July 1, 1960, the two newly independent states merged to form the Somali Republic. Unification was well received internationally, as the Somali Republic was seen as a likely prospect for political stability as the only post-colonial state in Africa with an ostensibly homogenous population, ethnically, linguistically, and religiously. 40 However, this apparent homogeneity masked deep institutional and historical divisions, while the process of unification was itself hastily and sloppily performed. 41 Signs of Southern political and economic dominance in the newly formed state emerged early on, as the Act of Union mandated a unitary, centralized state, not the federal system preferred by Somaliland leaders. 42 Centralization continued under the autocratic regime of Mohamed Siad Barre, Somalia s leader from 1969 to 1991, who pursued a militaristic and aggressive form of pan-somalism, seeking to unite all Somalis by force into a Greater Somalia. However, with his popularity and economy in tatters after Somalia s devastating defeat by Ethiopia in the Ogaden War, Barre s rhetoric of abolishing clan alignment gave way to the promotion of members of his own Darood clan. This was combined with state-orchestrated discrimination against members of the Isaaq clan, the largest clan in the North. 43 In the early 1980s, a group of exiled Northern Isaaq businessmen, religious leaders, intellectuals, and former army officers founded the Somali National Movement (SNM), whose main objective was to overthrow the Barre regime. 44 The organization did not initially define itself as secessionist; its members saw Somalia s unity as paramount, but fought for the establishment of a federalist state. 45 The Somali government responded to sporadic SNM attacks with reprisals against civilians in particular Isaaq clan members including extra-judicial executions, disappearances, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and harassment. 46 In May 1988, the SNM launched a coordinated military campaign from neighboring Ethiopia. The resulting civil war was characterized by massive abuses of the northern civilian population by government troops. 47 Despite the government s scorched-earth campaign, the SNM managed to defeat government troops in the north, capturing Hargeisa and Burao. The weakened central administration in the South attracted the attention of proliferating Somali armed groups, some of which advanced towards Mogadishu. 48 Siad Barre fled the city in January 1991 as troops led by General Muhammed Farrah Aidid closed in, and the central government collapsed. 49 Aidid s United Somali Congress (USC) captured the capital and one of its factions unilaterally formed a government, installing Ali Mahdi Muhammad Spring Summer

68 Alexis Arieff as interim president. 50 By this time, the SNM had established control over most of the territory within the borders of former British Somaliland. Independence : 1991-Present At a meeting in May 1991 styled after a traditional clan conference, SNM leaders and northern clan elders declared Somaliland s independence, repealing the 1960 Act of Union and declaring that independence was not an act of secession but rather a voluntary dissolution of a union of two sovereign states. 51 The first six years following the declaration of independence, however, were tumultuous and marked by inter-clan strife. Conflict between pro-hargeisa militia and armed groups opposing the government s efforts to extend its control throughout the entire territory began as early as A series of conferences organized in the mid-1990s by northern clans forged a consensus on peace, as well as agreements on political institutions and power-sharing. In 1993, clan delegates elected respected politician and former Prime Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Egal to be Somaliland s president. They also established a political institution, modeled after the British House of Lords, that continues to play a central role Somaliland s government today: an upper house of parliament, known as the Guurti, comprising traditional elders whose opinion and influence carry great weight in Somali society. 53 Egal s charisma and political experience allowed him to mobilize different clans in support of the government, which gave rise to a new national identity and unity. 54 On May 31, 2001, a draft constitution with a Preamble and articles explicitly reaffirming Somaliland s independence was approved by ninety-seven percent of ballots cast in a national referendum, according to official results. 55 While complete figures reflecting domestic support for Somaliland s statehood are impossible to obtain official statistics on the results of the constitutional referendum do not reflect the rate of voter abstention, while several border provinces were unable to participate in the referendum due to security concerns many observers have concluded that the 2001 referendum s results nonetheless reflect majority support for independence. 56 The constitution mandates a multi-party, democratic system of government with a strong president and a parliamentary legislature. It created a lower house of representatives chosen by direct election, while retaining the Guurti as an upper house with power to pass legislation and assist the government on matters related to religion, security, defense, tradition, culture, the economy, and society. 57 These institutions have served Somaliland well, installing a 66 Yale Journal of International Affairs

69 De Facto Statehood? stable and fairly representative system of government. When President Egal died of an illness while on official visit to South Africa in May 2002, power was passed on to his Vice President, Dahir Rayale Kahin (a member of a non-isaaq minority clan), for the remainder of his term, in accordance with constitutional mechanisms. 58 Multiparty district council elections (2002), a presidential election (2003), 59 and parliamentary elections (2005) have been held in a peaceful manner, supervised by a domestic election council and with no violent contestation of the results; in 2005, the opposition won control of parliament. 60 Despite some democratic shortcomings, 61 Somaliland today operates its own judicial system, boasts a private (though limited) press, and no longer generates refugees; in fact, it hosts a sizable community of refugees from southern Somalia. The government commands a uniformed army and police force. 62 Relative peace and stability since 1997 have allowed a small but robust private sector to flourish, spurred by local entrepreneurship, which in turn supplies the government with a more or less dependable (though small) revenue stream. 63 Visitors to Somaliland tend to wax euphoric about what the tiny territory s population has accomplished. 64 Somaliland s Foreign Relations Somaliland s diplomatic strategy hinges on obtaining membership in the AU, particularly as Western countries have been so far reluctant to extend official recognition before African countries are willing to do so. 65 Somaliland submitted an application for membership to the AU in December 2005, basing its claim on its visitors to somaliland tend to wax euphoric about what the tiny territory's population has accomplished. separate status during the colonial era and its brief existence as a sovereign state following independence in The application followed an AU fact-finding mission to Somaliland, conducted earlier the same year, which concluded that Somaliland s situation was sufficiently unique and selfjustified in African political history that the case should not be linked to the notion of opening a pandora s box.'" 67 The AU s acknowledgment that Somaliland s membership claim deserves any attention whatsoever is a stunning reversal; Somaliland s 1991 declaration of independence was received in the political environment of post-colonial Africa as an unwelcome and embarrassing claim." 68 The Somaliland government s case for statehood rests on a wide array of Spring Summer

70 Alexis Arieff overlapping justifications, including the principle of self-determination; the African Union s fealty to colonial boundaries, under the banner of uti possidetis juris; a purported right to secede in cases of severe human rights abuses; the government s ability to enforce its authority within its territory and defend it against external aggression; and its adherence to a democratic political system based on the rule of law. 69 While the first three of these arguments benefit from some grounding in international law, recognition or non-recognition of Somaliland s statehood has been stalled by domestic political considerations by AU members, and by the pragmatic calculations of Somaliland s neighbors and international partners. Despite for the strong historical underpinnings of Somaliland s claim to respect colonial borders," 70 African Union members have interpreted its claim to independence as a unilateral secession from an internationally recognized state (the Somali Republic), and have retained a solid commitment to the concept that Somalia constitutes a single sovereign state whose territorial integrity must be maintained. Indeed, the AU has, with little if any internal debate, accorded Somalia s AU seat to two successive coalition governments in Mogadishu which have held little demonstrable local authority or sustainable power. 71 Other states, regional organizations, and the UN have refused to recognize Somalia s dissolution; thus the determination of the international community not to lose the Republic of Somalia as a member of the family of states stands in the way of the Somaliland Republic being accepted as a state. 72 On a more pragmatic level, Somaliland s claim rests on its government s ability to enforce its authority throughout the territory it claims. As noted above, uniformed security forces loyal to Somaliland s government control most of its territory, with the exception of the volatile eastern border provinces of Sool and Sanaag, which are claimed by authorities in the neighboring autonomous region of Puntland. 73 Independent statehood appears to command majority domestic support. 74 Somaliland authorities further argue that the country has earned its sovereignty via the practice of good governance and democracy. 75 Unfortunately, however, territorial sovereignty has mattered very little in postcolonial African politics in comparison with de jure sovereignty, while democratic credentials are hardly respected as criteria anywhere in the world. 76 It is in the area of bilateral and multilateral ties that Somaliland s international status takes on the most significance. Somaliland s government entertains a wide array of de facto bilateral and multilateral relationships with the United Nations and its various agencies, the Arab League, European countries and 68 Yale Journal of International Affairs

71 De Facto Statehood? the European Union, and regional governments, as well as with the United States, a key player in the Horn of Africa. These have fluctuated according to each party s political and economic calculations, as the following section will demonstrate. Before settling on an AU-driven strategy, Somaliland s leadership initially attempted to gain recognition through the United Nations. 77 Since 1991, however, the UN Security Council has focused its diplomatic efforts in the Horn of Africa on resolving Somalia s chaos by backing efforts to construct a central government in Mogadishu with sovereignty over the territory of the Somali Republic. In line with this policy, there has been no formal recognition of Somaliland by any UN officials or agencies. 78 Since 2004, the UN has recognized the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) as the de jure government of Somalia; TFG officials occupy Somalia s seat at the UN headquarters in New York. 79 However, United Nations agencies on the ground have tacitly acknowledged Somaliland s separate status. During the ill-fated United Nations Operation in Somalia peacekeeping mission ( ), the UN acquiesced to Somaliland s refusal to accept foreign troops on its territory, noting in correspondence with Somaliland s President Egal that the peaceful reconciliation process [in Somaliland] has moved forward impressively amid the formation of a functioning administration. 80 As a former United States diplomat and outspoken advocate for Somaliland s international recognition has noted, the UN High Commission for Refugees, the World Food Program, and the World Health Organization have all conducted tacit negotiations with Somaliland authorities. 81 The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has set up at least four offices in Somaliland territory which communicate directly with local authorities, while the UN-HABITAT agency currently oversees a Somaliland component within its Urban Development Program. 82 Several European countries, while refusing to issue formal recognition, have interacted with Hargeisa as a de facto government. The European Commission (EC) maintains a larger aid program in Somaliland than elsewhere in Somalia, with development and humanitarian aid distributed via locally operating NGOs; 83 many Western European countries, including Italy, provide some form of financial assistance to Somaliland through aid agencies. 84 Strikingly, the EC provided over a million dollars in financial support towards the 2005 parliamentary elections in Somaliland. 85 While it is unclear whether any of these funds were directly disbursed to government authorities, the decision to finance elections for a self-described national institution in Somaliland indicates de facto recognition and support. The EC also sent election observers to monitor the 2005 vote, and plans to provide funding Spring Summer

72 Alexis Arieff for voter registration in Somaliland s next presidential election. 86 British authorities treat Somaliland tacitly as an independent state : relations with Hargeisa are handled through the U.K. s embassy in Addis Ababa, whereas relations with Mogadishu run through its High Commission in Nairobi. 87 During a parliamentary session in December 2007, Minister of State Mark Malloch Brown stated that his government s policy was to support international efforts to develop a peaceful and sustainable democracy in Somaliland [and] encourage the Somaliland authorities to engage in constructive dialogue with the transitional federal government to agree [on] a mutually acceptable solution regarding their future relationship, phrasing that would indicate a wide array of acceptable situations, including full statehood. 88 Within the region, Somaliland s foreign relations are complex, reflecting the shifting geopolitical strategies of state actors. Ethiopia has come closest to full recognition, having negotiated bilateral agreements with Somaliland authorities in several arenas. 89 In 2000, President Egal was received in Addis Ababa with state honors: he reportedly occupied the presidential suite at the Sheraton, met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, and negotiated agreements regarding transportation and other forms of cooperation. 90 Somaliland travel documents have been accepted by Ethiopian authorities since In May 2005, Addis Ababa and Hargeisa concluded a formal trade agreement allowing Ethiopia to use Somaliland s Berbera port for importing and exporting. 92 The agreement also established a customs office at major border crossing points between Ethiopia and Somaliland, featuring in one such check-point security forces from both countries, banking and governmental infrastructure. 93 Ethiopia s close ties to Somaliland reflect both economic and political concerns. After losing its own domestic ports following Eritrea s secession and independence in 1993, Ethiopian authorities have focused on establishing dependable access to maritime transport. 94 Separately, due to its history of conflict with Somalia and its own ongoing struggles with Somali separatism in the Ogaden, 95 Ethiopia has sought since 1991 to prevent Somalia s resurgence as a regional power. This, combined with its fear of Islamist movements along its borders, has culminated in Ethiopia s apparently contradictory support of both Somaliland and the weak TFG in Mogadishu, which officially seeks to incorporate Somaliland into its territory. 96 Ethiopia s dual support is a sign both that Addis Ababa is hedging its bets and that it holds the upper hand in both relationships. 97 Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has reportedly stated that Ethiopia is in favor of Somaliland independence, 70 Yale Journal of International Affairs

73 De Facto Statehood? but his administration does not appear willing to be the first to extend formal recognition. 98 Most Arab states are officially supportive of Somali unity and unwilling to consider Somaliland as an independent entity. Egypt s stance, which is particularly opposed to independence, stems from its desire to build Somalia into a regional counterweight to Ethiopia, out of its longtime fear of Ethiopia s potential for asserting control over Nile waters. 99 Additionally, Egypt is concerned that a sovereign Somaliland could provide strategic basing support to Israel and the United States at the mouth of the Red Sea. 100 Egypt s government has blocked Somaliland s recognition in the Arab League, which officially recognizes the TFG as the sole authority in Somalia. To the extent that Egyptian officials have communicated directly with Hargeisa, it has been to encourage Somaliland s participation in talks on Somali unity. 101 Saudi Arabia has ceded to pressure from Egypt and other Arab states to cease trade that benefits Somaliland s government. 102 However, the Arab League as an organization engages in some direct relations with Somaliland, through a representative in Hargeisa. 103 Yemen, another one of its members, has recently broken with its previous policy of refraining from entering into relations with Somaliland, and in 2006 the Yemeni government negotiated a bilateral cooperation agreement with Hargeisa over fishing resources and anti-piracy campaigns in the Red Sea. 104 Within the region, Djibouti and Kenya have positioned themselves as neutral towards Somaliland, both officially recognizing the TFG as sovereign while accepting diplomatic representatives of Somaliland s government in their respective capitals. 105 Both countries have hosted high-profile efforts to reestablish a Somali government, and both contain significant ethnic Somali populations. 106 Of the two, Djibouti has cultivated closer ties with Hargeisa, having negotiated agreements on trade and border control. 107 Conversely, the government of Eritrea, the sworn enemy of Ethiopia, supports the creation of a strong government in Mogadishu that could challenge Ethiopia s regional hegemonic status so long as that government is not the Ethiopia-backed TFG. 108 Sudan, while officially hostile to Somaliland s independence both out of diplomatic support for Somali unity and fear of setting a regional precedent for its own dissident provinces has engaged in low-level contacts with Somaliland authorities over flights between Khartoum and Hargeisa, and FM radio relays between the two territories. 109 Beyond ties to regional governments, the most potentially significant bilateral relationship for Somaliland s authorities is with the United States. Spring Summer

74 Alexis Arieff Somaliland s relations with the United States are predictably complex, reflecting the tortured history of American policy in the Horn as well as the post-2001 politics of the Global War on Terror. American officials were initially extremely reluctant to recognize Somaliland or any other self-declared autonomous entity in Somalia as an independent political unit, believing that partition would merely lead to the emergence of another unstable state in the region. A May 1991 cable sent by Secretary of State James Baker to American diplomats overseas stated: The Somali National Movement (SNM) recently announced northern Somalia s secession under the name Somaliland Republic, with boundaries apparently the same as the old British Somaliland protectorate. [...]The U.S. of course does not recognize any new entity in Somalia. As we have made clear elsewhere, we do not think declaratory acts hold the key to solving Somalia s or the [H]orn s problems. Only negotiations can do that. SNM s unilateral declaration of independence could also serve to complicate a possible initiative by African states or the OAU on the political front by introducing new juridical problems. In our actions and statements with respect to Somalia, we wish to call as little attention as possible to the SNM s UDI [unilateral declaration of independence]. 110 Following the American peacekeeping debacle in Somalia in the early 1990s, 111 American officials disengaged from Somalia beyond encouraging reconciliation talks hosted in neighboring countries. Hargeisa lobbied the U.S. to extend diplomatic recognition, with President Egal visiting Washington and meeting with State Department officials in 1999, but US officials refrained from action beyond increasing the level of (indirect) development aid. 112 Since 2000, however, relations have warmed, and in 2000 a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) delegation visited Somaliland, headed by the United States Ambassador to Djibouti. It was an unusual visit by a high-level United States official to a non-recognized African state. 113 Cooperation has increased in particular since 2001, owing to Hargeisa s solidification of territorial control in the North and southern Somalia s continued collapse, as well as the U.S. s newfound preoccupation with counter-terrorism in Africa. 114 The United States government-funded International Republic Institute monitored Somaliland s 2005 parliamentary elections, which were financed in part by USAID. 115 A diplomatic representative of Hargeisa resides in Washington and engages in regular discussions with American officials. 116 A former United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs told 72 Yale Journal of International Affairs

75 De Facto Statehood? the scholar Jonathan Paquin in 2005 that while waiting for some eventual Somalian government, we are doing what we could have done if we would have recognized Somaliland. We are giving aid. So the situation on the ground is not so different. 117 The United States legislature has served as a vector for pressure on the executive to boost ties with Hargeisa. In floor discussions, American congressmen have repeatedly expressed admiration for Somaliland s stability and democracy, while referencing direct cooperation with local authorities. In 1999 draft legislation, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations made mention of the northern part of Somalia, referred to as Somaliland by the elected representatives of the people living there, 118 while members of the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee in 2004 requested from the Secretary of State a report on a strategy for engaging with competent and responsible authorities and organizations within Somalia, including in Somaliland, to strengthen local capacity and establish incentives for communities to seek stability. 119 During congressional hearings in 2006 on the Islamist movement (known as the Islamic Courts Union, or ICU) that briefly took over Mogadishu and other parts of southern Somalia, Congressman Ed Royce queried whether we should give more autonomy to Somaliland... [since] maybe if we had created the ability for them to use institutions like the World Bank and get the kind of insurance that would allow businesses to go in there, you [would have] had sort of a functioning example... so people would say, uh-huh, if we followed that model like the autonomous region in Somaliland, look at the level of support we have once we establish the rule of law, look what a difference the engagement of the international community makes in terms of financing and business and opportunity. 120 Somaliland authorities have seized on the opening to propose cooperation with the United States over counter-terrorism and other security issues, including the use of staging facilities at Berbera. 121 In early 2008, President Kahin conducted a state visit to Washington. 122 However, in spite of increasingly close ties between Washington and Hargeisa, unilateral United States recognition in the absence of AU leadership does not appear to be forthcoming. The State Department s official position continues to be that the TFG is the sovereign government of all of Somalia. Concurrently with its increased counter-terrorism and developmental cooperation with Hargeisa, the United States has strengthened its support of the TFG, backing Ethiopia s invasion of Somalia in late 2006 to oust the ICU and reinstall the TFG by force, and engaging in joint counter-terrorism strikes. 123 In December 2007, The Washington Post reported that escalating conflict in southern Somalia had generated a dispute between the Pentagon and State Department over whether the United States should continue to back the Spring Summer

76 Alexis Arieff shaky transitional government in Mogadishu or shift support to the less volatile region of Somaliland. 124 The following day, the State department released a public statement titled United States Policy on Somaliland, which declared that while the United States continues to engage with the administration in Somaliland on a range of issues, most directly Somaliland s continued progress towards democratization and economic development, the official policy on recognition [was] to allow the African Union to first deliberate on the question. 125 A former United States diplomat and Somalia expert noted in 2005 that despite considerable sympathy for what Somaliland has achieved by way of internal stability, free elections, and the initiation of a democratic system of government... It is highly unlikely that the United States would move to recognize Somaliland before the African Union did so or, at a minimum, several key African states opted to do so. 126 A further element in the United States' stance involves American-based corporations, due to the prospect of oil exploration on Somaliland s territory. 127 Several international oil companies, including American companies Exxon Mobil, Amoco, and Chevron, have held exploration concessions in northern Somalia since the late 1980s, some of which may fall under Hargeisa s control. In 1991, the American energy company ConocoPhillips discovered oil fields in northeastern Somalia, including ones that lie under Somaliland soil. 128 Somaliland has asserted ownership of some of these exploration permits, in particular after Puntland s attempt to sell oil leases in waters off Somaliland s coast to foreign investors in the late 1990s. 129 In 2001, several international oil companies applied directly to Hargeisa for licenses to explore for oil along the coast. 130 For the moment, the status of these negotiations is unclear, but American corporations apparent desire to work directly with Somaliland s government places another ball in Somaliland s court. A De Facto State? While Somaliland s prospects for international recognition may appear to be brightening, full statehood is unlikely to be achieved in the near future owing to the political calculations of relevant international actors, who calculate that recognizing Somaliland s independence provides fewer benefits than clinging to the prospect of Somali unity while engaging in back-door cooperation with Hargeisa. So far, the African Union has remained hampered by its members highly conservative approach to territorial integrity (a term that approaches surrealism with reference to Somalia), while Western countries and donors successive attempts to reconstruct a single Somali government through a series of peace conferences have proved more wasteful than effective at fostering the emergence of stability in the Horn of Africa. In 74 Yale Journal of International Affairs

77 De Facto Statehood? Doornbos s succinct analysis, clubs of states [i.e., inter-governmental organizations such as the UN and AU]... tend to share a members-only vision, from which they can see the globe only as divided up into formally independent states that are recognized as members. 131 The international community is thereby handicapped by the conviction that each country must have its own government, and that, if it fails in this respect, some other authority should put things back in order. 132 Somaliland s government has established an impressive degree of control over the territory and population to which it lays claim. In addition to increasingly warm ties with the United States, it is clear from the above analysis that Somaliland s authorities engage in a wide array of direct relations with regional governments, the European Union, agencies of the United Nations, and private corporations. This is more than enough to conclude that the government of Somaliland, as a de facto authority, may engage in foreign relations and could be held legally responsible, for example, in cases involving foreign investment. There is however no official designation reflecting Somaliland s intermediate sovereignty, though this observation alone could bolster Somaliland s economic prospects and thus the viability of its governing system. Y -Kathrin Daepp served as lead editor for this article. NOTES 1 To use Brennan M. Kraxberger s term (Kraxberger, The United States and Africa: Shifting geopolitics in an Age of Terror, Africa Today, 52, no. 1 (2005): 51-2). 2 See, e.g., William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999). For a different take on African state sovereignty, which posits that African polities have historically sought to enforce their sovereignty over people rather than territory, see Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). 3 Zaki Laïdi, The Superpowers and Africa: The Constraints of a Rivalry (Chicago: Univeristy of Chicago Press, 1990), Kraxberger, Kraxberger, United Nations Charter, Chapter 1, Art. 2, available at January 9, 2008). UN Secretary General U Thant in 1970 stated, regarding the attempt by authorities in Nigeria s Biafra region to secede unilaterally, As an international organization, the UN has never accepted and does not accept and I do not believe it will ever accept the principle of secession of a part of its member states. (Secretary-General s Press Conferences, in UN Monthly Chronicle 36 [Feb. 1970], quoted in Michael P. Scharf, Earned Sovereignty: Juridical Underpinnings, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, 31, no. 3 ( ): 380.) 7 Organization of African Unity, Border Disputes Among African States (July 21, 1964), OAU Doc. AHG/Res. 16(I). 8 Art. 4(b), Constitutive Act of the African Union, Lomé, Togo (July 11, 2000), at oau/au_act.htm (accessed January 10, 2008). 9 Western Sahara Advisory Opinion, I.CJ. Rep. 1975, p Eritrea became independent in 1993, after the Eritrean People s Liberation Front (EPLF) fought a successful guerilla insurgency to separate itself from Ethiopia, and following a UN-backed referendum. It became a member of the UN and received international recognition as a state the same year. However, Eritrea s case is somewhat unique in that its secession was agreed upon by Ethiopia s new government after 1991; Somaliland s inability to obtain Mogadishu s consent has thus handicapped Somaliland s success in using Eritrea as a precedent. International law does recognize international boundary changes by peacefully negotiated agreement, though such a situation is the exception rather than the rule (International Crisis Group, Somaliland: Time for African Union Leadership, Africa Report No. 110 [May 23, 2006]: 15). 11 In its advisory opinion on the status of Western Sahara, the International Court of Justice ruled that in the absence of pre-colonial sovereignty by one territory s rulers over inhabitants of the other, self-determination trumped unification at de- Spring Summer

78 Alexis Arieff colonization. However, universal recognition did not immediately follow from this legal reasoning; while over 80 countries have formally recognized the independence of Western Sahara (as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) at some point, many have since frozen relations pending a UN-supervised referendum, or cancelled relations altogether under pressure from Morocco (ICG 2006, 1). 12 Also known as Burco, or Bur o. 13 See Gerard Prunier, Somalia: Civil War, Intervention and Withdrawal ( ), Refugee Survey Quarterly, 15, no. 1 (1996), particularly pp 45-54, for analysis of the various armed groups active in Somalia in Korwa G. Adar, Somalia: Reconstruction of a Collapsed State, Conflict Trends, 2 (2001): 14, at org.za/ct/2001-2/accordc_2001_n2_a5.pdf(accessed January 8, 2008). 15 The self-proclaimed leaders of Puntland, Jubbaland, Benadirland and Hiranland agreed to participate in the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG), a coalition formed at United Nations-backed peace talks in Nairobi in Somaliland refused to participate in talks establishing the TFG on the grounds that Somaliland is not a party to the Somali conflict (Somaliland Times, Government Clarifies Position on Somalia Peace Process, March 8, 2003, at [accessed January 13, 2008]). Puntland, the largest and most functional of the regions that did participate, had never sought complete independence from Somalia, but rather autonomy and eventual reintegration into an anticipated Federal State of Somalia. (ICG 2006, 8.) 16 The TFG has never been able to extend its authority beyond a small slice of southern Somali territory; since 2006, a civil war has pitted the TFG and its main regional sponsor, the Ethiopian government, against an Islamist insurgency. For an excellent and timely analysis of Somalia s political situation since the formation of the TFG, see Ken Menkhaus, The Crisis in Somalia: Tragedy in Five Acts, African Affairs, 106 (2007): Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (Montevideo Convention), December 26, 1933, available at yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/intdip/interam/intam03.htm(accessed January 8, 2008). While the convention is a regional American pact, and only binding as such on the western hemisphere states that have ratified it, the Montevideo principles are considered widely acceptable as reflecting customary international law. (Crisis Group 2006, 11. See also See Anthony J. Carroll and B. Rajagopal, The Case for the Independent Statehood of Somaliland, American University Journal of International Law and Policy, 8 [ ]: 678.) 18 Somaliland Ministry of National Planning & Coordination, Somaliland in Figures (Hargeisa: Government of Somaliland, 2004), 5. While many inhabitants of Somaliland are nomadic pastoralists, they reside more or less permanently within the borders claimed by Somaliland (Crisis Group 2006, 11). 19 Alison K. Eggers, When is a State a State? The Case for Recognition of Somaliland, Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, 31, no. 1 (2007): See, e.g., Somaliland Ministry of Information, Somaliland: Demand for International Recognition: A Policy Document of the Government of the Republic of Somaliland (Hargeisa: Government of Somaliland, 2001). 21 Crisis Group 2006, Anonymous, Government Recognition in Somalia and Regional Political Stability in the Horn of Africa, The Journal of Modern African Studies, 40, no. 2 (2002): Though in the time since this article was published the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) has been formed with international support, and resides in Mogadishu, it is unable to enforce territorial sovereignty, and is deeply dependent on the Ethiopian military for its survival. (See Menkhaus 2007.) 23 Crisis Group 2006, 12. This distinction in interpretation of the role of recognition in statehood reflects two theories, the declaratory theory (that a geopolitical entity becomes a state once it has satisfied the international criteria of statehood, while recognition serves merely as a political act of little significance) versus the constitutive theory (that a state becomes an international person only through recognition by existing states). See Carroll and Rajagopal 1992, This paper uses government to refer to Somaliland s administration in Hargeisa. The terminology is chosen in order to avoid confusion, not to imply that these authorities are internationally designated as such. 25 Christina Kiel (consultant to the Somaliland government through the non-profit organization Independent Diplomat), interview with author, January 7, Asteris Huliaras, The Viability of Somaliland: Internal Constraints and Regional Geopolitics, The Journal of Contemporary Africa Studies, 20, no. 2 (2002): 165. Somaliland continues to export livestock, mainly to the Arab Gulf states, but its exports are subject to periodic bans due to veterinary safety concerns. 27 Ibid. See also the official webpage of the Bank of Somaliland, at January 13, 2008). 28 Anonymous 2002, Marc Lacey, The Signs Say Somaliland, but the World Says Somalia, The New York Times, June 5, 2006 (via Factiva). As will be discussed in a later section of this paper, Ethiopia and Djibouti border authorities have accepted the movement of most Somalilanders based on Somaliland-issued travel documents. Despite U.S. domestic regulations against deporting asylum-seekers to Somalia, American authorities have deported Somali legal residents to various regions of Somalia when they have been convicted of crimes in the U.S. (See Jodi Wilgoren, Refugees in Limbo: Ordered Out of U.S., But With Nowhere to Go, The New York Times, June 4, 2005, via Factiva.) 30 UN News Center, UN Refugee Agency Starts Final Phase of Repatriation from Djibouti to Somaliland, 20 November 2007, at January 14, 2008). 31 Crisis Group 2006, Somaliland Ministry of Information, Somaliland: Demand for International Recognition: A Policy Document of the Government of the Republic of Somaliland (Hargeisa: Government of Somaliland, 2001). 33 See Hussein Abdilahi Bulhan et al, Ruin and Renewal: The Story of Somaliland, Report to the World Bank (Hargeisa: 76 Yale Journal of International Affairs

79 De Facto Statehood? Center for Creative Solutions, 2004): 12. The report is based on field work and extensive interviews of Somalilanders, including ex-combatants in the civil war. 34 Carroll and Rajagopal 1992, David Laitin and Said Samatar, Somalia: Nation in Search of a State (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1987). 36 Martin Doornbos, Somalia: Alternative Scenarios for Political Reconstruction, African Affairs, 101 (2002): This section is drawn from Ruth Gordon, Growing Constitutions, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, 1, no. 3 (1999): Carroll and Rajagopal 1992, Crisis Group 2006, 4; Jonathan Paquin, Somaliland: A Nonrecognized Independent State: , draft book chapter, 248. (Page numbers refer to a draft document provided by the author.) 40 Paquin, 248. Several scholars have convincingly refuted the notion of a homogenous Somali society; see, e.g., Ali Jimale Ahmed, ed., The Invention of Somalia (Lawrenceville, NJ: The Red Sea Press, Inc., 1995). Contributor Catherine Besteman, an expert on the minority Somali Bantu population, writes, The image of Somalia as a homogenous nation of one people who speak one language, practice one religion, and share one culture has been pervasive in the media as well as in scholarly writings. Only recently have divisions based on language, religious brotherhoods, and occupation been recognized as significant distinctions in Somali society (Besteman, The Invention of Gosha: Slavery, Colonialism, and Stigma in Somali History, in The Invention of Somalia, 43-62). 41 Carroll and Rajagopal 1992, The authors report that the Act of Union approved by the southern Somalia legislature and proclaimed by the new National Assembly on January 31, 1961 was significantly different from the unification legislation passed in the North. 42 Paquin, Crisis Group 2006, Paquin, Ibid. 46 Crisis Group 2006, Human Rights Watch, Somalia Country Report, in Human Rights Watch World Report (1989), at January 9, 2008). See also, Africa Watch [a division of Human Rights Watch], Somalia: A Government at War with its Own People, Testimonies About the Killings and the Conflict in the North (New York: Africa Watch, 1990). 48 See Prunier 1996 for an analysis of over thirteen armed clan political organizations involved in the Somali civil war from 1989 to Prunier refers to the SNM as indisputably the most democratic of all the fronts, since it had five elected presidents since its creation, all of whom had served a full time in office, to be replaced by an elected successor (Prunier 1996, 47). 49 Barre died in exile in Nigeria, four years later. 50 Paquin, 253. The move to install Mahdi as president not only alienated the SNM, it led to a split and in the USC and eventual war between factions loyal to Mahdi and Aidid, respectively (Prunier 1996, 48-50). 51 Ibid. 52 Bulhan et al 2004, ICG 2006, Bulhan et al 2004, The authors note that not all clan militia disarmed; the Iidagale clan militia clashed with the government over control of the Hargeisa airport as late as The Constitution of the Republic of Somaliland, unofficial English translation by Ibrahim Hashi Jama LL.B, LL.M; available at January 9, 2008). The referendum took place amid the installation in Mogadishu of a new, internationally-backed, ostensibly national government in Mogadishu, the Transitional National Government (TNG). 56 Crisis Group 2006, Somaliland Constitution, Jama transl., Art Crisis Group 2006, Kahin was reelected in 2003; while opposition parties initially protested, given his slim margin of victory, they accepted the election results after exhausting the appeals process. 60 Ibid, The U.S.-based advocacy organization Freedom House has concluded that Somaliland s 2003 and 2005 elections did not meet international standards and has questioned its judicial independence (Freedom House, Somaliland Report, Freedom in the World (2007), at ssed January 8, 2008]). Somaliland s authorities have also consistently sought to repress local independent media outlets (Committee to Protect Journalists, Somalia Report, Attacks on the Press in 2007, at som07.html(accessed March 12, 2008]). 62 Paquin, 262. Somaliland s annual government budget is roughly equivalent to US$20,000 (David H. Shinn, Somaliland: The Little Country That Could, Addis Tribune, November 29, 2002), over two-thirds of which in 2007 went toward salaries for civil servants and the military, fuel, and stationary (Dr. Abdulkadir Askar [Member of the Somaliland House of Representatives], $15 Million for Development Under the Somaliland Budget 2007, Sagal Group, available at See Ken Menkhaus, Governance without Government in Somalia: Spoilers, State Building, and the Politics of Coping, International Security, 31, no. 3 (Winter 2006/7): 91; Huliaras 2002, ; Gordon 1999, Spring Summer

80 Alexis Arieff 64 E.g., Lacy, Signs Say Somaliland ; Jeffrey Herbst, In Africa, What Does It Take to Be a Country? [Editorial], The Washington Post, January 2, 2004; Farhiya Ali Ahmed, Somaliland: Elusive Independence, The New African, January 2006; Alex McBride, Welcome to Somaliland, The New African, Aug/September 2006; Nicholas D. Kristof, A Land of Camel Milk and Honey, The New York Times, February 27, 2007; Jeffrey Gettleman, The Other Somalia: An Island of Stability in a Sea of Armed Chaos, The New York Times, March 7, 2007 (via Factiva). 65 Crisis Group 2006, i; Eggers 2007, 214; Huliaras 2002, 171; Paquin, Crisis Group 2006, i. The Crisis Group reports that internal AU documents indicate these might be the strongest aspects of Somaliland s claims. 67 Lacey, The Signs Say Somaliland. 68 Anonymous 2002, 251. AU members, many of which face separatist insurgencies within their own territories, are primarily concerned with whether Somaliland s recognition could create a precedent for secession via self-determination (Huliaras 2002, 170). However, as the Crisis Group has noted, the AU s cautious acceptance of a peace deal between North and South Sudan that agrees on a future referendum on southern Sudanese independence poses much more of a genuine threat to the AU s refusal to consider armed struggle as a route to self-determination (Crisis Group 2006, 16). 69 Somaliland Ministry of Information Somaliland points to the fact that its current territorial boundaries correspond to the former colonial borders of British Somaliland, which became an independent state on June 26, 1960 and was internationally recognized as such. Somaliland authorities argue that the May 1991 declaration of independence refers not to secession but rather the voluntary dissolution of a political union one that was never fully accomplished in the first place and that its status today is akin to that of other failed post-colonial unions such as those between Mali and Senegal, Senegal and the Gambia, and Egypt and Syria, none of which have had trouble being recognized as states. 71 See Anonymous 2002, , on the TNG ( ) and Menkhaus 2007 on the (current) TFG. Somalia s AU seat remained vacant, but was not abolished, from 1991 to Neither the TNG nor TFG has been able to pay dues to the AU, so Somalia has remained a non-voting (though diplomatically powerful) member (Crisis Group 2006, 14). 72 Nii Lante Wallace-Bruce, Taiwan and Somalia: International Legal Curiosities, Queen s Law Journal, 22 ( ): These areas fall within British Somaliland s post-independence boundaries, but are inhabited mainly by members of the Harti clan family, in particular two sub-clans, the Dhulbahante and Warsengeli. Puntland was formed as a homeland for Harti clan members and lays claim to both areas. Loyalties in these regions tend to be divided, and tensions between Puntland and Somaliland authorities over the issue have occasionally flared (Crisis Group 2006, 8-10). As Doornbos has pointed out, Somaliland and Puntland s competing claims to the Sool and Sanaag regions pit a justification of nationhood based on ex-colonial boundaries against one based on clan affiliation (Doornbos 2002, 103). The current president of the TFG, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, is the former president of Puntland, further inflaming TFG-Somaliland relations. See Markus V. Hoehne, Puntland and Somaliland Clashing in Northern Somalia: Who Cuts the Gordian Knot? published by the Social Science Research Council, November 7, 2007, available at (accessed January 15, 2008); and David H. Shinn, The Horn of Africa: How Does Somaliland Fit? Presented at a Discussion Seminar Introducing Somaliland in Umea, Sweden, March 8, 2003, available at net/2003/59/5908.htm (accessed January 13, 2008). 74 Crisis Group 2006, ii; Paquin Somaliland Ministry of Information, Kraxberger, For a critique of the international community s adherence to colonial boundaries in Africa, see Herbst. 77 Huliaras 2002, Gordon 1999, Despite Somaliland s stance during the talks that it would seek to establish peaceful co-existence and fraternal relations with a future government in Somalia (ibid), the government refused to recognize the TFG once it was inaugurated, given that the TFG s chosen president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, was the leader of Puntland and has pressed for the incorporation of Somaliland into greater Somalia (Marc Lacey, Somalia: Somaliland Rejects New President, The New York Times, October 13, 2004, via Factiva). The TFG s Charter does not provide room for even the independence of Somalia s component territories (Crisis Group 2006, 18). 80 From 1993 correspondence, quoted in Crisis Group 2006, Schinn Gordon 1999, 576; UN-HABITAT, Progress on Good Governance in Somaliland, May 25, 2005, at unhabitat.org/content.asp?cid=1999&catid=5&typeid=6&submenuid=0(accessed January 13, 2008). 83 Crisis Group 2006, 1. The EU has also repeatedly used the Berbera port as a transit point to ship humanitarian aid to Ethiopia (Schinn 2003). 84 Gordon 1999, Ibid, Kiel, interview with author. 87 Huliaras 2002, United Kingdom Parliamentary Records, vol. 697, no. 22, December 11, 2007, available via Hansard search engine, 89 Eggers 2007, Yale Journal of International Affairs

81 De Facto Statehood? 90 Anonymous 2002, Ibid. 92 Anonymous, Dilemma of the Horn: The West Pushes for Somaliland Recognition, Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, 34, 2/3 (2006): Ibid. 94 Huliaras 2002, See, e.g., Jeffrey Gettleman, In Ethiopia, Fear and Cries of Army Brutality, The New York Times, June 18, Doornbos 2002, Both the TFG and the Somaliland government have professed to be anti-terrorist and anti- Islamist (Doornbos 2002, 98; Huliaras 2002, 173). During the Arta peace process that gave rise to the TNG, Ethiopia lobbied against the unconditional recognition of the TNG on the grounds that the transitional government had close ties with Islamist groups in southern Somalia and a financial dependence on Arab states (Anonymous 2002, ). 97 Kiel, interview with author. 98 Apte et al 2006, 9; Schinn Apte et al 2006, 13-14; Doornbos Anonymous 2006, 7; Huliaras 2002, Schinn Ibid. 103 Ibid, Ibid, 15; Huliaras 2002, 174; Eggers 2007, 213; Doornbos 2002, Kiel, interview with author. 106 Djibouti hosted the Arta peace talks culminating in the TNG in Kenya was designated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a seven-country regional grouping, to host the 2004 peace talks that culminated in the formation of the TFG. 107 Apte et al 2006, Djibouti s Somali minority includes a sizable Isaaq population. 108 Doornbos 2002, 105; Kiel, interview with author. Due to its enmity with Ethiopia, the party that Eritrea supports in Somalia has been the Islamist insurgency that has battled the TFG since Schinn U.S. Department of State, May 1991, Unclassified Document E6, case (unclassified on January 20, 2006), quoted in Paquin, See, e.g., Donatella Lorch, Last of the U.S. Troops Leave Somalia: What Began as a Mission of Mercy Closes With Little Ceremony, The New York Times, 26 March 1994 (via Factiva); Peter J. Schraeder, Forget the Rhetoric and Boost the Geopolitics : Emerging trends in the Bush administration s policy towards Africa, 2001, African Affairs, 100 (2001): Paquin, 256, Ibid, 265; Huliaras 2002, Doornbos 2002, 98. Previously, U.S. policy followed the precept that only a stable, central authority in Somalia could contain the proliferation of Islamist terrorism (Huliaras 2002, 171). On the evolution of U.S. anti-terrorism policy in Africa, see Kraxberger 2005; Greg Mills, Africa s New Strategic Significance, The Washington Quarterly, 27, no. 4 (Autumn 2004); John Bellamy Foster, A Warning to Africa: The New U.S. Imperial Grand Strategy, Monthly Review, 58, no. 2 (1 June 2006); and Letitia Lawson, U.S. Africa Policy Since the Cold War, Strategic Insights, 6, no. 1 (January 2007). 115 See IRI, Parliamentary Election Assessment Report. 116 Anonymous 2006, Paquin, H. CON. RES. 20, Concerning Economic, Humanitarian, and Other Assistance to the Northern Part of Somalia, received and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, October 27, 1999, available through the Library of Congress online database ( emphasis mine. The text also notes that provision of economic development and humanitarian assistance to the people of such area does not constitute recognition of any particular claim to sovereignty by any de facto government of the region. 119 H.R.2800, Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2004 (Public Print), Sect. 699B (accessed via the Library of Congress); emphasis mine. 120 Somalia: Expanding Crisis In The Horn Of Africa, Joint Hearing Before The Subcommittee On Africa, Global Human Rights And International Operations And The Subcommittee On International Terrorism And Nonproliferation Of The Committee On International Relations, House Of Representatives, One Hundred Ninth Congress, Second session, June 29, 2006, available via relations (accessed December 20, 2007). 121 Ibid, Statement Of J. Peter Pham, Ph.D., Director, William R. Nelson Institute For International And Public Affairs, James Madison University. 122 Kiel, interview with author. As Kiel noted, with some humor, For Somaliland, this is an official state visit; for Washington, it s just a visit. 123 Mark Mazzetti, Pentagon Sees Move in Somalia as Blueprint, The New York Times, January 13, For an exhaustive discussion of developments in Somalia since 2006, see Menkhaus Ann Scott Tyson, U.S. Debating Shift of Support in Somali Conflict, The Washington Post, December 4, 2007, via Factiva. Crisis Group had noted similar pressure to recognize Somaliland from Defense officials in the U.S., reporting that at a meeting in Addis Ababa hosted by the U.S.-led Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, senior military officers Spring Summer

82 Taiwan and its Unique Relations with the United States and China I n t e r v i e w with Jaushieh W u, Ta i w a n's Chief R e p r e s e n t a t i v e to the United States ( ) On March 4, 2008 Taiwan s Chief Representative to the United States ( ), Jaushieh Joseph Wu, met with YJIA Editor Kathrin Daepp to discuss Taiwanese foreign policy, and in particular, its relations with the United States and China. Why do you think China has been so resistent to the idea of a formal declaration of Taiwanese independence? And could you tell us what is at stake for China? It is a matter of national pride or are there more practical issues at stake? This is a difficult question. I represent Taiwan, so I know a whole lot about the Taiwanese position and it is harder to describe the Chinese perspective. However, I have been in a position to deal with China for quite a while and will try to reason why China is so persistent about this issue. There is a combination of historical, practical, and strategic reasons. Historically, in 1936, Mao Zedong talked about the fact that Taiwan and Korea should become independent in the aftermath of the Second World War, but after 1949, the Chinese position changed into the stance that Taiwan is a part of China. The defeated Nationalist government occupied Taiwan and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) always talked of finishing the Civil War, while the KMT (Kuomintang) also spoke of reclaiming jurisdiction over the whole mainland. For practical reasons, I would say that China, if they can continue to paint the Taiwanese independence movement as something that is causing trouble, especially when China is stronger than ever, will be able to put Taiwan in a difficult position and squeeze Taiwan further, hoping that they will be able to take Taiwan back. Strategically, the Chinese government has seen the expansion of its influence and power, particularly the blue water navy. Several Chinese military leaders 80 Yale Journal of International Affairs

83 Tawain and its Unique relations with the united states and china have talked about expanding Chinese naval sources and the obstacle Taiwan poses to this type of military expansion. Therefore, there is a real need for them to take Taiwan back if China wants to become superpower one day. This makes them very emotional about the Taiwan issue and the saddest thing for me to see is the propaganda that China has created in making Taiwan a national issue. Sometimes I feel that Chinese officials have become a victim of their own propaganda and are unable to expand their position on Taiwan. As a result, there been missed opportunities for our two sides to work out some necessary issues, particularly our political differences. So, would you say that rhetoric by Chinese officials has limited policy options? Yes, exactly. Just to give you one example, China has been talking about Taiwan accepting the One China Policy. China has also been talking about the One Country, Two Systems model, but this policy is a no sell in Taiwan. People in Taiwan look at Hong Kong and they see a failed example. Public opinion is against this system and if you have the chance to talk to Taiwan government officials and ask them why they aren t more flexible about this One Country, Two Systems model, they will say that we cannot change it because the people of Taiwan do not accept it. By the same token, regarding the One China principle, people in Taiwan just won t accept that because Taiwan already runs itself. The Taiwan government has proposed some more flexible models to create a foundation for the two sides to negotiate with each other. Back in the early 1990 s, the KMT government under President Lee Teng-hui proposed models such as one country, two seats in the UN, one country, two areas, one country, two central governments, and other ideas, but the Chinese government rejected them outright. As a result, there was no way for them to talk about eventual solutions. I remember in 2001, the KMT was defeated in the presidential election, but they still tried to propose a compromise to the Chinese government. The KMT proposal for the foundation was a model called confederation. The reason I know this is because I was invited to participate, but did not have time during that period. Many academics were invited to work on this model of confederation, thinking that this was something the Chinese government would accept. However, when the KMT approached the Chinese with this proposal in the summer of 2001, the Chinese rejected it outright. You can see the stubbornness and emotion that has made Chinese policymakers victims of their own propaganda. They are simply not able to be flexible in dealing with Taiwan. Spring Summer

84 Jaushieh Joseph wu Do you feel that the same applies to the United States as well in terms of the One China policy? I am the Taiwan representative in the United States, so for me to openly criticize U.S. policy is not possible, but I would personally say that even the U.S.'s One China policy is not something that Taiwan welcomes because we wish for the United States to deal with Taiwan in a more dignified manner and we always hope that the United States will recognize Taiwan as a country that is not under China s jurisdiction but as a country that is self-governed, and as a country that deserves recognition. We also understand the practical difficulties in that regard, but our understanding of the U.S.'s One China policy is that it is different from the One China principle. The United States government position, under the Chinese One China principle, maintains that Taiwan is an integral part of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the United States, the policy is more flexible because the details are not spelled out, which allows me to engage in all sorts of dialogues with officials on a variety of issues. Many people in Taiwan complain that under the U.S.'s One China policy, the United States government does not receive our officials in a dignified way. I would mention the event in 2003 when I was serving on the Presidential Council and President Chen Shui-bian was allowed to have a very dignified visit through New York in He stayed in a hotel for two days and on one of those days he received human rights leaders and a number of U.S. congressmen. The U.S. policy is flexible enough to allow for that type of transit. In January of this year, the KMT won over thirty percent of the Legislative Yuan seats. How you would interpret this in terms of the upcoming presidential elections? The legislative election and the presidential election are two different elections and people have different logistical approaches in thinking about these two elections. It s not just my academic mind telling me this, but it s also the experience of previous elections. We need to trace the results of historical elections against different type of elections. For example, in presidential elections we have the DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) who was able to garner up to fifty percent of the vote during its peak in the 2004 election. In the county magistrate elections, as far as I can remember, the highest percentage for the DPP was somewhere around forty-four percent and in legislative election the DPP had never been able to receive more than forty percent of the popular vote. So, you can see that different people have different ideas in their mind when they go to different elections. 82 Yale Journal of International Affairs

85 Tawain and its Unique relations with the united states and china For the legislative election I think they were thinking more about how they can connect to the legislators themselves so that the legislator can help them on those local issues that are most important in daily life. For the presidential election, citizens start to think more about broader issues and we also have a higher election turnout because people feel that this is a more important election than the legislative election. People have different priorities in their minds when they go to the polls, so it s going to be very hard to draw preconclusions about the presidential election based upon the January legislative election. The legislative election in January had the result it did due to the change in the electoral system. In 2005, the people in Taiwan hated the performance of our parliament so much that they pressured the legislature to adopt a constitution amendment that would do two things: one is to slash the seats in half. Originally there were 225 seats, but as a result of the constitutional amendment there are only 113 seats left. For someone who had to face the opposition during my time in the cabinet, I was so delighted to see half of those guys lose their jobs. At the same time, this had a profound effect on the electoral outcome. We used to have multi-member district elections in the large districts and so many candidates competed for a limited number of seats. For the candidates to catch the imagination of the electorate, they resorted to crazy things, such as fist fighting, water throwing, lunchbox throwing...or came up with absurd allegations against the government. Television reports would then only catch these moments instead of reporting on more important events. We got rid of this type of election system and brought in a single member electoral system. The result is that the voter turnout and outcomes have been skewed. The KMT only received fifty-one percent of the popular vote, but seventy percent of the seats. That was the reason the DPP performed so poorly in the legislative election. Turnout was the same, but the outcome was disastrous. Following on the domestic issues, some of DPP s opposition groups have suggested the implementation of direct flights from mainland China as a means of stimulating the Taiwanese tourism industry. It has been suggested that this initiative alone will create 40,000 jobs in the first year and up to 100,000 jobs by the fourth year. What are the potential consequences, if any, of this proposal? About the direct flights, there are two dimensions to this issue. The first dimension is whether the direct flights can be realized. Based up on our experience in dealing with China, the Chinese have not been very forthcoming in negotiating with Taiwan. We have been put forward proposals and assessments to China, who remains disinterested. We found out that this Spring Summer

86 Jaushieh Joseph wu was due to largely symbolic reasons. China felt that negotiation process gave both sides claims to sovereignty, which the Chinese did not want Taiwan to have. Imbedded in the agreements was also the issue of the nationality of the planes, which were registered in Taiwan and the pilots themselves had Taiwanese certification. What we have tried to do is facilitate the negotiations by expanding overall goals, understanding that direct flights are an intermediary step that will eventually mean greater access and normalized travel for ordinary citizens on both sides. The second dimension to this issue is whether or not this is good for Taiwan s economy and can create job opportunities. Personally, I would say current projections paint an overly optimistic picture of what direct flights will do for Taiwan. Taiwanese investments in China are already considerable and we have 1.2 million people living and working in China. Having direct flights will most likely mean more capital pouring of Taiwan and I don t know if this will be good for Taiwan. The other thing we worry about is the consumer sector of the economy. China, even though it has experienced rapid economic growth, maintains a less expensive standard of living. Therefore, there is a natural tendency for people to go to China for shopping, golfing, etc., during the weekends and this is going to put Taiwan s consumer industry in jeopardy. Tied to this, there is concern that the service sector will suffer as well. Direct flights aren t necessarily a fix-all for Taiwan s economic issues. the policy we have tried to pursue in the international community is that as long as China does not threaten to use force against Taiwan, Taiwan will not declare independence and will not change its national title. Looking at the U.S. presidential election, do you think the outcome will have a significant impact on U.S. policy towards Taiwan? I think the United States has a long-term policy towards Taiwan that has been relatively stable within the parameters it often fluctuates between. Ever since 1972, when the Shanghai Communiqué was signed between the United States and China, the U.S. policy towards Taiwan has been consistent. On the other hand, the United States has been against Chinese threats of force against Taiwan, and this is extremely clear under the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act, which specifies very clearly that any actions by China, including boycotts and embargoes, constitute a concern by the United States and that the United States needs to be prepared for any type of conflict in the region and provide Taiwan with defensive capabilities. 84 Yale Journal of International Affairs

87 Tawain and its Unique relations with the united states and china On the other hand, the United States is also very clear in its policy that it does not want Taiwan to declare de jure independence or change its national title because it will bring China into a military conflict with Taiwan. Within these two extremes, you can see U.S. policy shift from time to time. This can been seen in President Clinton s policies toward Taiwan. In 1996, there was a cross-strait crisis because China tested missiles very close to Taiwan and the United States sent two aircraft carriers into the region to make sure the Chinese government did not escalate the situation further. The action was appreciated by Taiwan and we were repeatedly told that the United States was committed to the defense of Taiwan. However, just two years later, President Clinton made his very famous speech in Shanghai on the 3 Nos. No to Taiwan s independence, no to Taiwan s participation in international organizations where statehood is required, things like that and people in Taiwan were very offended. Just a year later, President Clinton shifted back and said the resolution of the Taiwan issue must be peaceful and have the consent of the Taiwanese people. There have been many policy shifts back and forth like that and I expect that the new administration will be the same. Do think it is likely that China will resort to military force in dealing with Taiwan or is it simply a threat? Is China willing to engage in long-term conflict over Taiwan if it meant retaliation of some sort from the United States? It s very hard to answer this question. The difference between political science and social science is that in political science, you can test these scenarios and if it does not work, you can make changes and try again. But in social science, there is no going back. In the case of Taiwan changing its national title, once it is done, this decision is not reversible and Taiwan s policymakers are careful of this. We, of course, do not want to put the welfare of Taiwan s people in jeopardy and this is why we must proceed cautiously. We want to avoid becoming engulfed in a war with China. Since the UN referendums of 2000, we feel that the Chinese have misunderstood Taiwan s intentions. The policy we have tried to pursue in the international community is that as long as China does not threaten to use force against Taiwan, Taiwan will not declare independence and will not change its national title. This is to prevent the Chinese from getting the idea that Taiwan is pursuing reckless policies and to show them that we are willing to proceed cautiously if they are willing to work with us. How do you see cross-strait relations playing out in the long run? It appears that Taiwan is in a very precarious situation because without international Spring Summer

88 Jaushieh Joseph wu recognition of state sovereignty, your government does not have access to services offered through international institutions. What are Taiwan s long-term prospects? Is the long-term goal still independence, do current conditions have to change, or might some kind of accommodation be reached with China? When I was attending Ohio State University, I always asked my professor, What do you think about this situation in the long run, and my professor s answer was always: in the long run, we all die. Sorry, this is a bad joke, but the point is that the long-term relationship between Taiwan and China is something that is very difficult for us to predict. Nevertheless, we are quite certain that Taiwan is going to remain the way it is for a long time to come because Taiwan is becoming a mature democracy. We have two political parties competing against each other and it's going to be this way for a long time to come especially now that we adopted the single-member district election for our nation; small parties will disappear and be replaced by two parties competing against each other on economic issues and cross-strait issues. In the long run, Taiwan will remain the way it is right now, except that it might be better off economically. I think the unpredictable factor in cross-straight relations will come from the Chinese. Even though China has been developing very rapidly, especially in the costal areas, there s also a bigger part of China that is lagging behind and this kind of inequality in China is likely to breed instability and we have already seen so many instances of social instability in China. The Chinese government will have hard time figuring out effective ways to deal with these issues: environmental degradation, corruption they don t have adequate political institutions to deal with these issues farmers situations, the problems associated with peasants, and all these kinds of issues might become factors of instability. What we worry about is that when China becomes unstable, the authoritarian leadership, based upon their traditional trends of action, will want to create a crisis with a neighboring country so they can divert domestic attention away from internal problems in order to keep the country together. Taiwan, unfortunately, happens to be situated conveniently next to China and that is a situation we worry about so it s going to be very hard to predict the future of Taiwan-China relations. 86 Of course, people in Taiwan always talk about the future of Chinese development, discussing if China will become as democratic, as prosperous, or be able to bridge the income disparity that the United States, Japan, and many European countries have. People in Taiwan cannot resist the idea of reunification with China, but I think the problem is that in the transition period, people fear that there will be many opportunities for instability. Y Yale Journal of International Affairs

89 Modeling European Security and Defence Policy: Strategic Enablement, National Sovereignty and Differential Atlanticism B y David Blagden European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) the hard power component of the European Union s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is arguably the most contentious issue in European Union (EU) politics today. 1 On the one hand, the pooling of resources between intimately-bound allies in order to expand their power appears to make good strategic sense. Yet on the other hand, the Europeanization of defense policy touches on fundamental issues of national sovereignty and identity, while also attempting a difficult balancing act with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the post-world War II cornerstone of European security. These tensions and divisions are evident in the embryonic literature on ESDP, with several accounts available of the Policy s trajectory. 2 This debate matters: the EU is the world s largest economic bloc, contains many established democracies, and is a long-standing strategic partner of the United States. The need to understand ESDP s development subsequently extends far beyond Brussels. An attempt will be made here to provide a measure of conceptual clarity in this charged debate by exploring the underlying drivers of ESDP. Specifically, there are three conflicting forces that appear to influence the pace and form of (and tensions in) ESDP: strategic enablement, national sovereignty, and differential Atlanticism. These will be discussed individually before they David Blagden holds a B.A. (Honours) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Pembroke College, University of Oxford, and a M.A. (Honors) in International Relations from the University of Chicago, where he was a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar. He is an analyst at Business Monitor International (BMI), a London-based country risk and strategic analysis firm. note:the views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of BMI. Spring Summer

90 David Blagden are incorporated into a preliminary model. This model is complicated by the fact that these three forces appear to be at work both between states at the international structural level and within states the domestic level, as becomes evident in the conclusion. Subsequently, the model is tested against the empirical record. It must be stressed that the model represents a tentative "first cut" at the issues involved; it does not pretend to be an exhaustive list of relevant factors, nor does it suggest that it is the only approach to framing the discussion. For instance, the role of changes in external actors posture receives only perfunctory treatment. Nevertheless, in such a politically-charged debate, at least attempting to conceptualize ESDP in this manner via a methodical clarification of the underlying forces involved is an important step in thinking about EU defense integration. The Forward Driver: The Logic of Strategic Enablement Strategic enablers are policies typically in the form of international relationships that allow a country to obtain military capabilities that would be beyond its independent means. 3 Leaving aside ideational issues, therefore, strategic enablement in pursuit of the Petersburg Tasks represents the principal motivation for European defense integration and common policy formation, such as the ESDP. 4 Strategic enablers can take the form of technology (i.e. actual military hardware) or implementation capacity (i.e. coherent, swift and coordinated political and strategic planning capability). ESDP clearly provides a route to both of these goals, via "pooling" between Member States. 5 First, the European Defence Agency (EDA) exists to facilitate economies of scale and development cost-sharing in European defense procurement, thus reducing inefficient development duplication between atomized national defense industries. 6 Second, and likewise, the creation of particular institutional apparatuses such as the CFSP Political and Security Committee and Policy Planning Unit, EU Military Committee and Military Staff, and EU Satellite Centre, all facilitate coordinated, cohesive and rapid European implementation of ESDP commitments. Third, and perhaps most significantly, the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF), which has been available at full strength, at least officially, since January 2007, offers a force of 60,000 troops that are deployable at 60 days notice to a range of 2,500 miles and sustainable for at least a year. 7 This "Helsinki Headline Goal" requirement named after the December 1999 European Council meeting in Finland where it was formally launched combines both capability and implementation elements, and is clearly a strategic enabler, since any single European state would struggle to achieve this alone Yale Journal of International Affairs

91 Modeling European security and defense policy Clearly, strategic enablers are only desirable if they are needed. Accordingly, there must be reasons why the EU should seek such capabilities, especially since strategic enablement often entails tradeoffs. First, if the EU feels that it has a greater need to protect its own interests due to a United States that is potentially increasingly preoccupied, then strategic enablement will be desired. Such a finding would be broadly consistent with structural realist theory. 9 In particular, the demise of the bipolar Cold War structure may have left Europe with a greater fear of abandonment by a United States that perhaps no longer sees its defense as a fundamental interest; furthermore, it could even constitute a form of soft balancing against the excesses of U.S. policy. 10 Second, if Europe concludes that its broader CFSP is unattainable without a hard power element, then strategic enablement will be additionally desirable. 11 It is essential to ascertain whether one or both of these conditions presently exists in Europe, and if it does, whether the emergence of ESDP paralleled the emergence of these conditions. If either of these conditions does indeed exist, it is likely that there is a powerful logic driving the deepening and empowerment of ESDP. The Red Line : The Preservation of National Sovereignty Despite its apparent benefits, strategic enablement is not costless. Strategic enablers often entail tradeoffs. In ESDP, one of these relates to the specific transatlantic context (i.e. NATO); this ambiguity is detailed below. However, in all cases of international strategic enablement, there is a more fundamental issue at stake: national sovereignty. Inevitably, in any situation of defense pooling, there exists a tradeoff with national autonomy. In the ESDP context, this tradeoff has become highly salient. First, the independence of national defense-industrial bases, and consequently, technological capabilities, is necessarily challenged by transnational bodies such as the EDA. Second, even if domestic capabilities are retained, engaging in transnational defense planning inevitably entails some subordination of national preferences to community ones. Third, even if the deployment of forces as part of the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF) or EU "battle groups" occurs by consent, it still entails surrendering the command of certain national forces to a transnational commander for the duration of any operation. 12 These issues present difficult questions for national sovereignty. On an ideational level, control of the armed forces is often an integral part of national identity, pride and history; militaries are amongst the most venerated national institutions, and their command is viewed as an integral component of nationhood. On a structural level, control over independent foreign policy Spring Summer

92 David Blagden is one common definition of sovereignty; the level at which any given political entity is able to interact independently with other political entities is the level at which that political entity counts as a "black box" (i.e. the state). In short, while no biological suffering may be involved, the loss of independent foreign policy constitutes a form of state death. 13 Such issues delve deep into the meaning of the survival assumption that permeates international relations theory: is it the politically-defined state that is of significance, or the individuals who inhabit it? Nevertheless, regardless of whether it is national identity or state interest that is at stake, it remains far from clear that the demise of the European sovereign state is desirable to anyone outside of a small group of federalist visionaries. Furthermore, the direction of ESDP enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty is especially contentious, since this stipulates the extension of Qualified Majority Voting into certain areas of CFSP. The removal of national vetoes, even on minor issues, clearly poses tough questions for the sovereignty of national policies in the areas concerned. 14 A related drawback of ESDP stems from the fact that intra-european strategic enablement looks the same as a drive towards federalism: the two are observationally equivalent. While defense policy pooling may simply reflect a desire for Europe to punch its weight, delegating security entirely to the EU while perhaps not yet on the table would constitute the death of individual Members in favor of a federal super-state, to which a large majority of Europeans remain opposed. In short, while strategic enablement may provide the rationale that drives ESDP forward, concerns over national sovereignty provide a major countervailing force. Sovereign concerns, be they real or imagined, act as a brake on ESDP. This may yet prove to form an absolute "red line", beyond which ESDP cannot move without the EU becoming a federal entity. An Ambiguous Third Force: "Differential Atlanticism" (ESDP, NATO and the Role of the United States) The model as it currently stands is remarkably simple: two diametrically opposed forces pulling against each other. Atlanticism and the differentials within it, however, exert influence on ESDP in a far less straightforward way. Atlanticism is used here broadly to refer to all forces affecting ESDP that relate to NATO and, by connection, its principal member: the United States. Initial inspection indicates four ways in which Atlanticism could differ between EU Members. First, there may be ideational differentials in play, as certain EU Members may feel a stronger bond with the Atlantic community and the United States than others. Second, there may be strategic enablement differentials at work. Just as ESDP conveys strategic enablers, certain 90 Yale Journal of International Affairs

93 Modeling European security and defense policy EU states can likewise benefit from U.S./NATO strategic enablers, and thus may attach different weights to the respective relationships. Third, there may be differential perceptions of NATO and the U.S. s credibility and effectiveness. Some may see the transatlantic relationship as a liability, given the U.S. s recent ability to generate anti-western hatred in the Islamic world; others may see the United States as the only credible guarantee of European security in the face of major threats such as a resurgent Russia, rising China, and nuclear terrorism. Finally, there may be significant capability differentials that influence the ability of European states and the United States to interact. While no EU Member possesses equal military capability to the U.S., certain states may find it significantly easier to operate alongside the U.S. than others, and thus attach more weight to the transatlantic relationship in their strategic planning. The ambiguity in the Atlanticism factor stems from the fact that it does not necessarily fit to a straightforward "more/less ESDP" continuum. Atlanticists can be opposed to ESDP if they see ESDP as a threat to NATO s primacy in ensuring European security and as a potential rival rather than complement to U.S. military power, or as a threat to the benefits it may provide. Yet Atlanticists can also be in favor of ESDP if it complements NATO functions and reduces the burdens on the Alliance. In addition, Atlanticism can be opposed to both ESDP and national sovereignty at the same time. In a time of high security threats, the need for the U.S. security guarantee may be such that it would subordinate both foreign policy autonomy and European pooling to its prerogatives. The result is that Atlanticism must be modeled as shaping the form of ESDP. This may entail more or less deepening, but its Changes in U.S. attitudes toward ESDP are also significant in the Policy s short-term and long-term developmental trajectory. Contemporary U.S. debates revolve around whether it is in the United States interest for Europe to develop greater military capabilities. While this would enable the EU member states to shoulder a greater burden for global security, it also raises the question of whether it serves the United States better to remain preponcontemporary U.S. debates revolve around whether it is in the United States' interest for Europe to develop greater military capabilities. principal effect will be to pull the nature of ESDP in one direction or another, depending on Members degree of Atlanticism. As the term differential implies, tension in ESDP would arise if these member states were to weigh the pros and cons of Atlanticism differently. Spring Summer

94 David Blagden derant in Eurasia. 15 Such a question matters, because the U.S. is well-placed to manipulate the "strategic enablement" component of its relationship with European states, in turn strengthening the claim that Atlanticism differentials between EU Members can pull ESDP in different directions. Such issues are of legitimate concern, but need not receive detailed treatment within the Eurocentric model presented here. That said, the direct bilateral relationship between the United States and EU states and the fact that both of their opinions on ESDP matter presents an important avenue for future discussion. Similarly, the impending shift in the international environment from unipolarity to multipolarity through the heightened influence of Russia and China may have effects on ESDP that are significant in future analysis and debates. 16 The effects of the conflicting forces of: strategic enablement, national sovereignty, and differential Atlanticism can now be combined to produce a preliminary model of ESDP. Specifically, the relative strength of the strategic enablement and national sovereignty variables is likely to influence the speed or even reversal of ESDP development at any one time. Moreover, the degree of Atlanticism among EU Members at a given time will shape the form that ESDP takes. 17 This result is presented diagrammatically in Figure 1, where the horizontal axis measures the depth of ESDP and the vertical axis measures its form. Pro-Atlanticists Complement NATO & U.S. No More / Less ESDP Maintain / Deepen National Sovereignty Strategic Enablers (& Federalists) Rival NATO & U.S. Anti-Atlanticists Figure 1: A Preliminary Model of the Forces Affecting the Depth and Form of ESDP 92 Yale Journal of International Affairs

95 Modeling European security and defense policy Applying the Model: The Development of ESDP To test the model s usefulness, it is necessary to apply it to the empirical situation and thus discover its explanatory power. While one can hardly be exhaustive due to scope constraints, the three-force model will be considered here in relation to a brief "thumbnail" history of ESDP. First, it is worth noting that formal EC/EU defense integration did not start during the Cold War. 18 At this time, the overwhelming security threat to which the U.S.-led NATO Alliance was the only viable solution appears to have outweighed the forces that may drive ESDP, as the failure of the 1952 European Defense Community initiative and De Gaulle s 1961 Fouchet Plan illustrates. 19 Interestingly, it also arguably overwhelmed the national sovereignty variable. The Soviet threat was so great that Germany, for example, was only semi-autonomous in foreign policy. 20 Crucially, at this time, the U.S. commitment to European security was unquestionable, as NATO guaranteed the security of all Alliance members even via nuclear weapons while destabilizing wars on Europe s periphery (as came to characterize the 1990s) were unthinkable due to the bipolar power dynamic. The European security environment changed dramatically after 1989, however. First, the Cold War s end and USSR s demise diminished both the need and use for NATO. 21 Second, the Gulf War illustrated the low deployability and limited technological capabilities of European powers, with only the United Kingdom being able to contribute a full armored division. 22 Third, during the various wars in the former Yugoslavia, a combination of capability and coordination problems rendered Europe embarrassingly ineffective in handling even small-medium crises on its periphery without U.S. involvement. 23 Fourth, the United States massive force draw-down in Europe demonstrated that European interests were increasingly placed in European hands. 24 Fifth, various efforts at ad hoc procurement cooperation, most notably, the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft, were complicated by the lack of a central coordinating agency. Sixth, France, one of Europe s two powers capable of non-trivial power projection, realized that cooperation did not necessarily lead to reduced freedom of action, as it operated alongside NATO-integrated U.K. forces in a number of theatres. 25 Tying these six features back to the aforementioned three forces, it is clear that the relative pressures for European defense integration increased markedly at this time; the need for European strategic enablers was stark, while the Atlanticist need for NATO and the United States that had previously subordinated Europe was simultaneously less pressing marked the real turning point in the genesis of ESDP. France had long Spring Summer

96 David Blagden favored a more autonomous even independent military capability, while events of the 1990s may have convinced other European states of the desirability of defense pooling, for the reasons outlined above. However, the United Kingdom s volte-face at the Saint-Malo Franco-British Summit in 1998 marked the true "green light" for European defense integration. 26 Prior to this, the U.K. had advocated strict Atlanticism, keen to avoid any challenge to NATO, while the pre-1998 Conservative government was naturally suspicious of EU projects. 27 Yet by 1998, four factors appear to have convinced the EU s largest military spender of ESDP s desirability. First, calls for an evermore efficient use of the defense budget, induced by a combination of extensive operational commitments and the New Labour government s welfare plans, raised the incentive to acquire strategic enablers through European development sharing. At the same time, ongoing problems and spiraling costs with the Eurofighter warplane project illustrated the difficulties of ad hoc cooperation in the absence of an agency. 28 Second, Europe s failures in the Balkans which Tony Blair was embroiled in within his first months in office illustrated that Europe s technological capabilities and coordination mechanisms were sorely lacking. 29 Third, and perhaps most crucially, U.K. experiences with the United States in the Balkans illustrated that the U.S. could no longer be relied upon to pursue a costly policy that the U.K. deemed to be in its vital interests. Clinton s refusal to countenance a ground invasion of Bosnia was perhaps the clearest case. 30 Fourth, and in a related vein, Blair argued that the ever-growing gaps between the United States and European NATO Members was placing damaging strain on the Alliance; ESDP was thus a vehicle to enable the Europeans to pull their weight without substantially raising budgets. In short, in Blair s 1998 view, ESDP may have had the potential to save NATO. 31 Relating back to the three forces, this situation is also consistent with the model: the drive for strategic enablement was acute, while the factor of Atlanticism acted in favor of ESDP as Blair attempted to buttress the Alliance. 32 Iraq was not a NATO operation, but differential attitudes towards the United States clearly shaped the European NATO Members' policy stance. The greatest challenge to ESDP thus far arose during the 2003 Iraq conflict. 33 While the broader CFSP did not collapse, as it still continued in its aid, legal and economic capacities, its cohesion as a hard actor via ESDP was severely challenged. Dissenting views in the approach to the Iraq War split the EU into two factions: the U.K., Italy, Spain and certain "new" Members on one side, and France, Germany and a number of "old" Members on the other. Such a schism is representative of a differential on the Atlanticism axis. The 94 Yale Journal of International Affairs

97 Modeling European security and defense policy British-led group appears to have envisaged ESDP as a complement to the NATO Alliance, while the French-led group envisaged it as a check on the United States, and this divergence manifested itself once tested. 34 Iraq was not a NATO operation, but differential attitudes towards the U.S. clearly shaped European NATO Members policy stance. First, ideational differences may have been at play; the United Kingdom government made much of its Special Relationship with the United States, and apparently felt a bond of solidarity. 35 Second, the United Kingdom was less willing to jeopardize its relationship with the United States than, say, France, due to the uniquely extensive strategic enablers that the relationship brings: while the EDA does significant work, this is dwarfed by the cost savings the United Kingdom receives from the United States. Consider, among others, the privileged U.K. acquisition of the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM), its Tier 1 Partner status on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) project, privileged access to U.S. satellite intelligence assets, and, perhaps most dramatically, its lease of Trident submarine-launched ballistic nuclear missiles (SLBMs) from the U.S. stockpile. Third, U.K. and French assessments of the United States role in the world clearly diverged; the U.K. apparently saw the U.S. as the only power capable of defeating global terrorism and containing a rising China, while the French appeared to see the U.S. more as a liability, whose policies were likely to foster terrorism. 36 Fourth, while capability differentials were not too significant (low capability) Romania and Bulgaria sent troops, while (high capability) France and Germany did not the fact that only the U.K. could play a truly interoperable role in the invasion may have been influential. In addition to these Atlanticist issues, concerns over maintaining sovereign control of forces may have played a role in is the EU s inability to act with a single voice over the conflict: a single EU position would have inevitably forced at least some major states to act in a manner that they considered detrimental to their vital interests, thus challenging their independence of action. 37 In short, differential Atlanticism is confirmed as a powerful force by the Iraq events, while, for the first time in modern ESDP, sovereignty issues may have arisen in a meaningful way. The situation today provides the final interesting case for the described ESDP model. As mentioned, the Lisbon Treaty introduces QMV to certain areas, along with adding a Solidarity Clause (comparable to NATO s Article V). As a result, the sovereignty debate has come to the foreground in a hitherto unprecedented fashion. While the Treaty looks set to be ratified, it is unclear how much further ESDP can proceed without posing fundamental questions for Members independence. Simultaneously, despite the post-iraq Franco-British rapprochement, the Atlanticism variable is present with renewed force. In the face of a resurgent, energy-controlling and increasingly authoritarian Spring Summer

98 David Blagden Russia, U.S. military power is once again appealing to EU elites (strengthening NATO), yet an overstretched United States is also becoming less antagonistic to the notion of a capable, burden-sharing Europe (strengthening ESDP). 38 How the EU-U.S. relationship develops and whether the major EU states forge a convergent or divergent politico-military position will have an important effect on ESDP in the coming years. 39 Lingering tensions within ESDP remain, and how these unfold will profoundly influence the future direction of the Policy. Conclusion: Making the Model Multi-level The future of ESDP matters: the EU is the world s largest economic bloc, and how this considerable latent power is ultimately arrayed will carry major implications for the entire international system, particularly the sphere of liberal democracies. Accordingly, an attempt has been made to bring conceptual clarity to the European defense debate by identifying three underlying forces that explain ESDP evolution. As a first cut, the empirical record suggests that this is a reasonable predictor of ESDP s trajectory, although more rigorous testing is clearly required. The model also sheds light on the presence of harmony or discord between EU Members over ESDP. Where different states weigh the three forces differently consider Iraq ESDP becomes a source of great tension and cannot function effectively. Where there is harmony amongst the major powers, by contrast consider Saint- Malo ESDP deepens. A careful examination of these events produces an important avenue for future research: the domestic/international multi-level divide. 40 It is clear that the weight given to each of these three forces will be a source of differences within states, as well as between them. This could be a product of external shocks, elite preferences, or public opinion. 41 Thus, any EU state s national position will be contingent on how the domestic debate plays out. Insofar as international divisions over ESDP hold it back, therefore, the future of the European domestic debate on ESDP will be crucial. Notably, if a Conservative government takes office at the next U.K. General Election, with their markedly different weightings of the three forces, we may find that ESDP has already passed its high-point. 42 For an EU that stands on the verge of wading into the Balkans once again, via a pending Police and Justice Mission to newly-independent Kosovo, the tensions described in this article will be at the heart of the inevitably heated debate on ESDP for years to come. The model presented here may be only a first cut, but it provides at least one way to think clearly about these underlying forces as the world contemplates Europe s uncertain future. Y -William Ko served as lead editor for this article. 96 Yale Journal of International Affairs

99 Modeling European security and defense policy * - The author also wishes to thank Seth Jolly, Jesse Klempner, Jeff Marshall, and John Schuessler for invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this paper. He would also like to thank the Rotary Foundation for their generous financial support. NOTES 1 The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) represents the Second Pillar of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty on European Union. 2 See for examples, Richard G. Whitman, NATO, the EU and ESDP: An Emerging Division of Labour?, Comparative Security Policy, vol. 25, issue 3, December 2004, ; Adrian Treacher, From Civilian Power to Military Actor: The EU s Resistable Transformation, European Foreign Affairs Review, vol. 9, 2004, 49-66; Gilles Andréani, Cristoph Bertram and Charles Grant, Europe s Military Revolution (London: Centre for European Reform, February 2001). See for an overview: William Wallace, Foreign and Security Policy: The Painful Path from Shadow to Substance, in Helen Wallace, William Wallace and Mark A. Pollack (eds.), Policy-Making in the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005 (5th Edition)), Strategic enablers could also refer to specific types of network-enabled military technology, yet this meaning of the term is clearly inappropriate for this context. See, for example, U.K. Ministry of Defence, Delivering Security in a Changing World, M.o.D. Defence Contracts Bulletin, 14 January 2004, DeliveringSecurity.pdf. 4 The Petersberg Tasks are described by the EU as humanitarian relief, conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peacemaking. On the view of ESDP as strategic enablement, see Kari Möttöllä, Drivers of Defence Integration within the European Union, Paper prepared for the Sixth (SGIR) Pan-European International Relations Conference, September 2007 (Turin, Italy), Whitman, NATO, the EU and ESDP, ; Edgar Buckley, Britain and France Must Pool Parts of their Defence, CER Bulletin 49 (London: Centre for European Reform, August/September 2006). 6 See EDA: Background, European Defence Agency (Brussels: EDA). =Background&id= The ERRF represents the portion that should be available at any one time of a much larger pool of pledged forces, and is more properly known collectively as the Helsinki Force Catalogue. Nevertheless, the ERRF name has passed into common usage, and so this practice is followed here. 8 Recent EU3 (UK, France and Germany) calls for nine rapidly-deployable battle groups (~1,500 troops) represent a similar trend, as part of the broader Headline Goal 2010 commitment to achieve complete EU competence across the full range of Petersberg Tasks: Richard G. Whitman, NATO, the EU and ESDP, 448. The combined EU defence budget for 2006 was over 200 billion and funded around 2 million troops, making this capabilities-expectations gap doubly stark. See Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) figures, mex_trends.html. 9 This view would be consistent with structural realist analyses of the future of Europe, which predict that in the absence of a potential peer competitor the U.S. superpower will have little incentive to remain engaged as a balancer on non- American landmasses: John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2001), especially Barry R. Posen, European Union Security and Defense Policy: Response to Unipolarity?, Security Studies, vol. 15, issue 2, July 2006, ; Seth G. Jones, The Rise of European Security Cooperation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Robert A. Pape, Soft Balancing against the United States, International Security, vol. 30, issue 1, Summer 2005, A detailed explanation of the evolution and drivers of the EU s broader CFSP is far beyond the scope of this paper; however, there are significant liberal institutionalist and constructivist arguments that may augment or rival the realist take on ESDP proffered above. See Möttöllä, Drivers of Defence Integration within the European Union, Difficult questions are also posed albeit of a different sort for traditionally neutral EU states (namely, Austria and Ireland): such complications are excluded from the argument in this paper for clarity s sake, but are worth bearing in mind. 13 Tanisha M. Fazal, State Death: The Politics and Geography of Conquest, Occupation, and Annexation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 1. Essentially, this point enters the debate on the meaning of the survival assumption, i.e. whether it relates to the formal survival of the state as a political organisation (the realist focus) or something else. 14 Liam Fox, Britain, Europe, and NATO: Heading in the Wrong Direction, Speech by the U.K. Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, 31 January On the latter view in particular, see Christopher Layne, Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006). 16 On the likely impact of multipolarity defined as a world of three or more first-tier great powers on CFSP, see Charles Grant, and Thomas Valasek, Preparing for the Multipolar World: European Foreign and Security Policy in 2020 (London: Centre for European Reform, December 2007). 17 Note, however, that path dependency mechanisms may reduce the ability for change if Atlanticism in Time 2 differs from that in Time 0. Spring Summer

100 David Blagden A limited degree of informal coordination did exist during the later years of the Cold War, via the European Political Cooperation mechanism. 19 Whitman, NATO, the EU and ESDP, 431; Wallace, Foreign and Security Policy, Clearly, the unique circumstances whereby Germany came to be occupied by Allied troops World War II partly explained this fact; however, the decision for the United States to stay was Cold War-driven. 21 Treacher, From Civilian Power to Military Actor, Treacher, From Civilian Power to Military Actor, Treacher, From Civilian Power to Military Actor, In 1955, there were 413,169 U.S. troops in Europe, and by 1989, there were still 315,434 deployed there. By 1993, however, this number had fallen below 150,000 (145,302), and by 2004, the figure was only 110,804. See Tim Kane, Global U.S. Troop Deployment, (Database) (Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation, 27 October 2004). On the notion that European security policy is increasingly in European hands, see Kori Schake, Constructive Duplication: Reducing EU Reliance on US Military Assets (London: Centre for European Reform, January 2002). 25 Treacher, From Civilian Power to Military Actor, Christopher Hill, The EU s Capacity for Conflict Prevention, European Foreign Affairs Review, vol. 6, 2001, 319. Such a view of EU policymaking i.e. as deals struck between the concerned major powers is broadly consistent with intergovernmental theories of European integration: see Andrew Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998). Note, however, that the argument that integration is driven by strategic enablement rather than domestic business groups is more consistent with realism than Moravcsik s neoliberal focus. 27 Treacher, From Civilian Power to Military Actor, On delays and cost overruns in the Eurofighter program, see proceedings of the U.K. House of Commons Select Committee on the Public Accounts, 21 October cmpubacc/383/38305.htm. 29 Steven Everts et al, A European Way of War (London: Centre for European Reform, May 2004). 30 Posen, European Union Security and Defense Policy, 167; Treacher, From Civilian Power to Military Actor, Treacher, From Civilian Power to Military Actor, For Europe s principal military power, strategic enablement drove ESDP forward, national sovereignty was not yet an issue, and the sideways pull of Atlanticism shaped the form i.e. NATO-complementary rather than NATO-rivalrous of the Policy. 33 In particular, the USA s aggressive and unilateralist policy was a cause of great friction. See, for example, Stanley R. Sloan, NATO, the European Union, and the Atlantic Community: The Transatlantic Bargain Challenged (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005 (2nd Edition)), Treacher, From Civilian Power to Military Actor, On the U.S.-U.K. relationship s background, see Analysis: Anglo-American Special Relationship, BBC News Online, 6 April On its role in Iraq and earlier crises, see How the Special Relationship Comes First, BBC News Online, 26 September stm. 36 European Nations split on Iraq, BBC News Online, 29 January stm. The hard credibility of NATO over the EU is referenced in Claire Piana, The EU s Decision-Making Process in the Common Foreign and Security Policy: The Case of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, European Foreign Affairs Review, vol. 7, 2002, This position is also consistent with Moravcsik s intergovernmental model, since it suggests that only where the preferences of major powers converge does integration move ahead: Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe, Whitman, NATO, the EU and ESDP, 449. On growing European concerns over the resurgence of Russia, see, for example, RAF Alert as Russia Stages Huge Naval Exercise in Bay of Biscay, The Times, 28 January timesonline.co.uk/news/world/europe/article ece. On America s increasingly favorable view of EU military improvements, see Briefing: The State of NATO, The Economist (U.S. Edition), 29 March 2008, It is possible, for instance, that the U.K. will resolve to be closer to the heart of Europe and subsequently less Atlanticist, leading to a more unified Franco-British-German position: see, for example, Robin Niblett, Choosing Between America and Europe: A New Context for British Foreign Policy, International Affairs, vol. 83, issue 4, 2007, Equally, however, it is possible that the U.K. could choose to reassert the transatlantic special relationship especially under a possible future Conservative government which would weaken ESDP. 40 Perhaps Putnam s two-level games concept would be an appropriate framework. See Robert D. Putnam, Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-level Games, International Organization, vol. 42, issue 3, 1988, On external shocks, see Treacher, From Civilian Power to Military Actor, 50. On elite (particularly mid-tier elite) preferences, see Piana, The EU s Decision-Making Process in the Common Foreign and Security Policy, On public opinion, see Hill, The EU s Capacity for Conflict Prevention, 317. Note, however, that the latter two variables elite preferences and public opinion are at least partially endogenous on the other two. 42 The Conservatives broadly oppose ESDP, on grounds of both national sovereignty and its threat to NATO. See Fox, Britain, Europe, and NATO. 37 This position is also consistent with Moravcsik s intergovernmental model, since it suggests that only where the preferences of major powers converge does integration move ahead: Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe, 3. Yale Journal of International Affairs

101 Modeling European security and defense policy Equally, however, it is possible that the U.K. could choose to reassert the transatlantic special relationship especially under a possible future Conservative government which would weaken ESDP. 40 Perhaps Putnam s two-level games concept would be an appropriate framework. See Robert D. Putnam, Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-level Games, International Organization, vol. 42, issue 3, 1988, On external shocks, see Treacher, From Civilian Power to Military Actor, 50. On elite (particularly mid-tier elite) preferences, see Piana, The EU s Decision-Making Process in the Common Foreign and Security Policy, On public opinion, see Hill, The EU s Capacity for Conflict Prevention, 317. Note, however, that the latter two variables elite preferences and public opinion are at least partially endogenous on the other two. 42 The Conservatives broadly oppose ESDP, on grounds of both national sovereignty and its threat to NATO. See Fox, Britain, Europe, and NATO. Spring Summer

102 C o m m e n t a r y Confronting Threats to the Homeland: The Next Generation B y Secr e t a r y M i c h a e l Cher t o f f This year, our country is commemorating the fifth anniversary of the formation of the Department of Homeland Security. This is a fitting time to be thankful for the successful defense of our homeland. Yet it is also a time to assess the likely threats we will face over the next generation. We should do so, however, soberly; we must avoid the extremes of hysteria and complacency, while embracing solutions that confront our challenges decisively. At times, the media have breathlessly conveyed the impression that threats of nearly every kind are materializing with far greater frequency than in the past. This is partly an illusion triggered by a human tendency to magnify today s problems compared with those of yesterday. What is hardly illusory, however, is the outworking of a number of distinctly modern developments which give rise to emerging threats to our safety and security. When it comes to natural threats, for example, we have built communities in areas susceptible to wildfires, earthquakes, and floods, putting record numbers of people at risk. Moreover, the globalization of modern travel has produced unprecedented geographical mobility, raising the specter of a worldwide spread of infectious diseases. With respect to man-made threats, the mobility that can deliver diseases to our doorstep can bring terrorism there as well. In addition, modern science and technology amplify the capabilities of terrorists so that they may someday have the potential to destroy countless lives by detonating a single weapon in a well-populated area. What can we do about these emerging threats to the homeland? 100 Michael Chertoff is the current United States Secretary of Homeland Security. This article was developed from Secretary Chertoff's speech delivered at the Yale Law School on April 7, Yale Journal of International Affairs

103 Confronting threats to the homeland In dealing with natural threats, we can stop some diseases in their tracks through inoculation, but obviously, we cannot prevent earthquakes or hurricanes. What we can do is take steps to reduce our vulnerability and improve our capacity to respond to them. In the case of man-made dangers, there is much that we can do to prevent disasters from occurring. But it is imperative that we first identify and face squarely the nature and extent of those perils. For much of the last century, the United States and the Soviet Union existed under the threat of nuclear annihilation. As the famous Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists doomsday clock denoted, sometimes we grew closer to and sometimes more distant from the midnight of an apocalypse. Yet this system was remarkably and fundamentally stable. It rested on the understanding that our Soviet adversaries had as much to lose from a nuclear exchange as we did. They had no desire to become martyrs. This system was sufficiently sturdy that it changed only when the internal structure of the Soviet system crumbled. In our new century, we face challenges that are obviously different in a number of ways. Terrorist groups do not wield destructive power remotely on the scale of a nuclear state. But networked terrorists also act without the restraints of deterrence. Their supporters and assets are dispersed and low-profile. Their While al Qaeda remains a significant threat to the U.S. homeland, it continues to target societies across the Muslim world that rejects its message and its methodology. willingness to be martyred is significant. And modern technology has given even small groups a destructive potential that continues to increase. Nevertheless, there is a commonality between the current threat of terrorism and the historical challenge posed by the Soviet Union and other communist powers. It is the need to confront a unified, underlying ideology and world view. In confronting the Soviets, we faced the ideology of Marxism, however hollow it eventually appeared. In our struggle with international terrorism, our main adversary is a cult of violent Islamist extremism, which seeks to hijack for its own ends the religion of hundreds of millions of peaceful Muslims. In the case of Marxism, what began as a movement distributed in pockets around the globe led to an ideology that took control of nations. In a like manner, violent Islamist extremists seek host states in which they can train, flourish, and create platforms from which to attack other countries. Spring Summer

104 Michael Chertoff Their aim is to follow the example of Marxism by gaining control of states or nations. This similarity is no accident. An al Qaeda training document discovered in Afghanistan in 2002 specifically referred to Mao Zedong s three stages of insurgency. Those stages include (1) recruitment and indoctrination; (2) sustained terrorist warfare; and (3) the ultimate seizure of territory and the levers of state power. Of course, al Qaeda came closest to achieving the third and final stage of power during its pre-9/11 alliance with the Taliban in Afghanistan. More recently, leaders of this extremist ideology have reiterated this goal. Ayman al Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden s deputy, proclaimed in July 2006 on an extremist web site that the whole world is an open field for us. And the uncompromising view of these radicals is made clear by a line in al Qaeda s charter which reads as follows: We will not meet the enemy halfway and there will be no room to dialogue with them. In order to grasp fully the implications of such rhetoric, we need only recall the conditions in Afghanistan under the Taliban. They harbored al Qaeda, inflicted horrific punishment on dissenters, and drove women from public life, making them the virtual property of husbands and fathers and denying them an education along with other rights recognized by the modern world. It was only through the overthrow of that regime that these rights were restored. But the destruction of al Qaeda s headquarters in Afghanistan while a major positive step did not obliterate this terrorist organization or the virulent ideology it represents. Following this substantial setback, al Qaeda and its key members retreated to other parts of the world. They removed to the frontier areas of Pakistan, where over time, they have obtained breathing space to train, plan, experiment, and maintain a pipeline of operatives. They extended into the Maghreb, North Africa, and carried out attacks against UN facilities, the courts, and schoolchildren. They returned to parts of Somalia, a weak state where they hope to control territory and increase their capability of launching further attacks. When we outline the continued threats we face from terrorism, we must begin with an extremist ideology and with al Qaeda, its most potent representative. As Admiral Michael McConnell, our nation s intelligence director, recently said, Al Qaeda remains the pre-eminent threat against the United States, both here at home and abroad. Indeed, al Qaeda and its affiliates form a truly global terrorist network, with a presence on multiple continents. While al Qaeda remains a significant threat to the U.S. homeland, it continues to target societies across the Muslim world that reject its message and its methodology. It has launched numerous attacks against Muslims with ferocity 102 Yale Journal of International Affairs

105 Confronting threats to the homeland and contempt for human life and dignity. According to the National Counterterrorism Center, al Qaeda and similar groups have killed thousands of people, mostly Muslims, over the past several years. Among their targets have been political and governmental candidates and leaders. Last December, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto by al Qaeda-allied militants brutally ended the quest by a woman to become Pakistan s elected leader again. In February of this year, in Rawalpindi, near Pakistan s capital, a suicide bombing killed that country s surgeon general. Also in February, an al Qaeda plot was uncovered to assassinate the president of the Philippines. But these extremists have seen fit to murder ordinary citizens as well. Twoand-a-half years ago, in Amman, Jordan, a groom, his bride, and the fathers of both newlyweds were among the dozens of Muslims slaughtered in the middle of a wedding celebration by a triple suicide bombing. In April of this year, in a town north of Baghdad, at least forty-five people were killed during a funeral for two Sunni tribesmen. Every report of wanton killings by al Qaeda and its affiliates serves as a grim reminder of the lethal threat they pose. But here is the vulnerability that al Qaeda has now created for itself: this unending slaughter of innocent Muslims sows the potential seeds for al Qaeda s failure. Simply stated, these acts of extremism are alienating the very pool of people terrorists wish to convert to their creed. Tellingly, the two Sunni tribesmen mentioned above were part of an Awakening Council which was battling al Qaeda and its minions in Iraq. Within the Sunni sections of Iraq, there has been a rising tide of revulsion against the mounting atrocities of al Qaeda and other foreign fighters. Over the past year, Sunni leaders have taken up arms to free themselves from these terrorists. Coupled with the American military surge, the result has been a dramatic setback for al Qaeda in Iraq. This undeniable backlash against the extremists is not limited to Iraq. Clerics and other Muslim leaders around the world have begun a dialogue in which the apologetic for violence is being emphatically rejected. Last September, Salman al Oudah, a well-known Saudi cleric, sent an open letter to Bin Laden criticizing al Qaeda s attacks against innocent civilians. In his letter, Oudah asked, How many innocents among children, elderly, the weak, and women have been killed and made homeless in the name of al Qaeda? As a result, potential recruits to violent Islamic extremism are hearing an alternative view with growing clarity. They are beginning to learn from respected clerics that those who would recruit them to a creed that glorifies death and destruction Spring Summer

106 Michael Chertoff are offering a false path. Individual Muslims are now questioning al Qaeda s indiscriminate violence. In a recent web-based question-and-answer session, al Zawahiri was forced to strike a defensive tone in the face of sharp questioning of bombings that killed innocent Muslims, including schoolchildren. One questioner asked, Do you consider the killing of women and children to be jihad? In response to such questions, al Zawahiri became defensive, alternately denying the charges, claiming that some of the innocents had been used as shields, and awkwardly insisting that al Qaeda is entitled to destroy people who get in the way of their operations. Coupled with other al Qaeda statements designed to discredit Muslim religious leaders who are opposing them, it appears that al Qaeda s leaders are becoming worried about the growing, active opposition from within the Muslim community. These are significant developments in the battle against extremism and terrorism. Every effort we make to counter the terrorist threat will fail if terrorist groups are able to recruit operatives faster than we can capture or kill them. Clearly, in the long run, the war against terrorism will be largely won or lost in the recruitment arena. The threat of violent Islamist extremism will not soon pass. Al Qaeda will continue pursuing platforms, recruitment and training opportunities, and laboratories in which to experiment with weapons. Therefore we dare not abandon our vigilance. In the short run, capturing and killing al Qaeda leaders and operatives; frustrating the flow of their communications, money, and travel; and disrupting their plots are crucial tasks. But the strategic battle will be for the allegiance of a critical mass of Muslims. In that effort, the fulcrum must be a growing counterforce to extremism. It cannot emerge from governments or from their leaders in the West. It must come from within the Muslim community, finding its voice and rejecting the attempts to hijack Islam. the war against terrorism will be largely won or lost in the recruitment area. Although al Qaeda and its network are our most serious immediate threat, this may not be our most serious long-term threat. There are other terrorist organizations, also driven by radical beliefs and practices, which pose a strategic risk to our nation and its allies. Among them is Hezbollah, a word which literally means the party of God. Hezbollah has a history that reaches back to the early 1980s, with its creation as a pro-iranian Shi a militia. Long before al Qaeda was formed, Hezbollah had helped pioneer suicide bombing, including the 1983 bombing of our Marine peacekeepers in Lebanon and the 104 Yale Journal of International Affairs

107 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Confronting threats to the homeland Richard Armitage once called Hezbollah the A-team of terrorists and for good reason. Having operated for more than a quarter century, it has developed capabilities about which al Qaeda can only dream, including large quantities of missiles and highly sophisticated explosives, uniformly well-trained operatives, an exceptionally well-disciplined military force of nearly 30,000 fighters, and extraordinary political influence. Hezbollah shows what an ideologically driven terrorist organization can become when it evolves into an army and a political party and gains a seriously imbedded degree of control within a state, as Hezbollah has done within Lebanon s democratic infrastructure. This is, in many ways, a terrorist group that has graduated from Mao s second stage of insurgency to the third stage where it is steps away from ruling part or all of a functioning nation-state. Indeed, looking ahead, there is a real danger that Hezbollah could paralyze or even dismember Lebanon. The good news is that Hezbollah s alliance with hostile foreign powers like Iran and Syria has cost it the support of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese citizens who especially resent Syria s history of encroachments on Lebanon s sovereignty. While Hezbollah may not have carried out attacks in the U.S. itself, it has developed a presence in our western hemisphere, specifically in South America. In 1992, it bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing twenty-nine people. Two years later, it murdered eightyfive people by bombing a Jewish community center in that city. This disturbingly underscores Hezbollah s reach into our own hemisphere, notably in the tri-border areas at the margins of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Hezbollah s patron, Iran, is also forging warmer relations with Venezuela. These developments, only a relatively short distance from our own borders, underscores that Hezbollah is not just a Middle Eastern concern. In our immediate backyard other terrorist groups with different ideologies also pose a threat. Among the oldest is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the acronym for its Spanish name. Starting out in the 1960s as a Marxist guerrilla group which took up arms against the government, it eventually became a criminal enterprise as well. Today, it engages in a host of activities, from illegal narcotics trafficking and extortion to kidnapping and hostage taking for ransom and political leverage, in order to fuel its ideological efforts and its protracted war against Colombia s duly elected government. Organized along military lines, the FARC replicates in the areas it controls the influence that Hezbollah has in parts of Lebanon or what al Qaeda once had in Afghanistan. Like al Qaeda and Hezbollah, it is Spring Summer

108 Michael Chertoff listed by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization. And the FARC demonstrates what happens when terrorism and organized crime converge, each enabling the other. The FARC has clear ties to Hugo Chavez s Venezuelan government and has been hosted by Chavez in his own country. As President Bush has noted, when Colombian forces killed one of the FARC s key leaders, they found computer files that suggest even closer ties with Venezuela than had been previously known. This connection between a terrorist group and a nationstate notably parallels the relationship between Hezbollah and Iran. As with al Qaeda and Hezbollah, however, FARC has generated significant opposition among the people whose allegiance it seeks. Just this February, millions of Colombians rallied against it, demanding that it release the hundreds of hostages it has been holding for years. Finally, while al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the FARC represent threats from ideologically motivated organizations, our security will be increasingly threatened as well by sophisticated transnational groups that operate purely as criminal enterprises. The same forces of globalization that have helped spread dangerous ideologies have empowered criminal organizations to become far more adept at trafficking in narcotics and human beings, and also in other kinds of activities that threaten the stability of societies and their governments. Perhaps the most lethal of such groups is Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, which was formed in the early 1980s by immigrants in Los Angeles, some of whom were former guerrilla fighters in El Salvador. It began as a street gang, selling illegal narcotics, committing violent crimes, and fighting turf wars with other criminal entities. In January of this year, an FBI threat assessment noted that MS-13 is in at least forty-two of our fifty states, with 6,000 to 10,000 members nationwide. Over time, MS-13 has spread not only across our cities but back into Central America, engaging in human trafficking, assassinations for hire, assaults on law enforcement officials, and other kinds of violent activities that threaten the stability of countries having difficulty dealing with powerful, armed forces within their midst. In 1997, in Honduras, MS-13 kidnapped and murdered the son of the president, Ricardo Maduro. In 2002, in the Honduran city of Tegucigalpa, MS-13 members boarded a bus, executed twenty-eight people, including seven small children, and left a handwritten message taunting the government. Two years later, the president of Guatemala, Oscar Berger, received a message tied to 106 Yale Journal of International Affairs

109 Confronting threats to the homeland the body of a dismembered man, warning of more killings to come. MS-13 is not now an ideological group, but continues to bring death and disorder to our neighbors to the south. That will be even more disturbing should a day come when this criminal network gains the power to dominate a small state in our own hemisphere. In short, from al Qaeda to MS-13, over the next decade, we will face a full spectrum of man-made threats that call for an array of preventive measures. These threats will derive from organizations that are networked, widely distributed, difficult to deter, and aided in their ability to commit acts of violence by globalization and technological advances in travel, communications, and weaponry. How will we prevent such threats from being carried out against our country? An extended discussion is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say, we need to keep pursuing a broad-gauged strategy. First, we need to keep using our military and intelligence assets abroad to stop dangerous people from reaching us at home. Second, we need to secure those hinges of the global architecture that are being exploited by global terrorism and crime, and where these illegal global networks are also at their most vulnerable. This means intercepting the illegal networks communications, stopping their flow of finance, and interfering with their ability to travel. Third, wherever we face ideological threats, we must contend with them. We must give voice to those around the world who oppose them. From Iraq to Lebanon to our own hemisphere, wherever people stand for freedom against tyranny and terror, we must stand with them. And we must urge communities of moderation to have the courage of their convictions and take a similar stand. To do anything less is to cede the battlefield of ideas to extremists, enabling them to recruit the next generation of terrorists without a fight. Fourth, we need to encourage the free flow of people and ideas to and from our nation. That means outreach to encourage travel to the U.S. Fifth, we must continue to send people and resources abroad to help meet humanitarian needs. When we help African nations fight malaria or HIV/AIDS, we are not only combating misery with compassion, but we are demonstrating our values through positive action. Hezbollah gained significant traction by providing social services to local communities. When we have provided aid overseas, as in post-tsunami Asia, we have seen our image strengthened. Engagement with health, education, and social welfare around the globe can be an important tool in strengthening global security. Spring Summer

110 Michael Chertoff Finally, enhancing our trade and security support for our international partners is critical in fostering the strength they need to resist dangerous global ideologies and criminal networks. Whether through free trade agreements like the Colombia FTA or capacity-building plans like the proposed Merida Initiative aimed at reinforcing Mexico s campaign against narco-traffickers, we must seize every opportunity to inoculate our neighbors against international terrorists and crime organizations. As we engage with the world, our principle should be, in the words of the Marine motto, No better friend, no worse enemy. Y -William Ko served as lead editor for this article. 108 Yale Journal of International Affairs

111 C o m m e n t a r y A Two Pronged Approach for France and its Muslims: Integration and Assimilation Introduction B y Br y a n Grove s Riots and fires riddled France during 2005 and again in Youth and immigrants protested their poor economic situation and what they believed to be unfair government policies and treatment by police. The heart of France s recent problems with Muslim immigrants is the French societal view that places them outside of French society. As demonstrated in Illustration One, the current French psyche views Muslim immigrants as non-contributors, living inside France, but outside the French societal spectrum. This presents French Muslims with unique challenges. Although other factors are also at work, as long as Muslim immigrants remain outside French society, any contributions they make are lost on native French society. As Illustration One illustrates, if Muslim immigrants are moved to within the French societal framework, even if initially at the bottom, their contributions will impact French natives. Likewise, they will then enjoy the opportunity to experience upward mobility within France. Until France effects the Muslim community s transition from being secondary players outside the system to members of the system, they will be marginalized and their opportunities will be minimal. This situation presents French citizens with a dilemma between holding onto traditional French culture in its entirety and enlarging its perspective to meet the challenges of a new era. Bryan Groves graduated from the Yale International Relations program in May 2008 with a focus in Security and European Studies. A Major in the United States Army, he graduated from West Point in 1998 and is an Airborne Ranger and a Green Beret. He has served with Special Forces in Iraq and Bosnia, is on the governing board for Officers Christian Fellowship, and is beginning an assignment teaching International Relations at West Point. 109 note: The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the U.S. Military Academy, or any other U.S. government entity. Spring Summer 2008

112 BrYan Groves A Multifaceted Problem In addition to the social challenges, there is also an economic dimension to the problem. The economic disparity between French natives and the Arab immigrant community is large. The unemployment rate for people of French origin is nine percent, but fourteen percent for those of foreign descent. For those with university degrees, unemployment is five percent overall, but twenty-seven percent among North African university graduates. 1 One Arab journalist, Nadir Dendoune, described his perception of this part of the problem in the following manner. You feel you will never make it because you are Arab. 2 French people are weary of immigrants because they fear they will lose their jobs. A March 2000 survey indicated that a majority of citizens thought immigration causes unemployment to rise, 3 a perception that increases during periods of economic recession. 4 The increased stress of economic hardship, or the potential of it, fuels negative stereotypes and inhibits natives reception of immigrants. Third, France s integration and assimilation of Muslim immigrants has a religious component. The influx of radical imams who preach hate or advocate for acting on that hate through violent means is a national security threat. 5 France needs a positive alternative to these imams and needs to prevent extremist imams from preaching in French mosques. A related problem is that in Islam no formal training is necessary to be an imam. 6 That means the Muslim community will not necessarily view trained imams more favorably than non-trained imams. An alternative training venue which engrains a liberal Islamic perspective will only be effective if the imams trained by it are given the opportunity to serve as imams upon completion of their training. Recommendations There are two fundamental aspects to the incorporation of legal Muslim immigrants into French society. The first is their integration and the second is their assimilation. The first refers to their acceptance by native-born French citizens. The second refers to their individual acceptance and adoption of French culture. The French government cannot control either of these entirely, but it can influence the first and set favorable conditions which will increase the likelihood of the second. The policies France implements, therefore, must aim to positively impact one or both of these conditions. 110 Yale Journal of International Affairs the Sarkozy administration should focus on developing policies that encourage job creation, a new social perspective, and greater religious toleration.

113 A Two Pronged Approach for France and its muslims There are a number of areas in which France can improve its current policies. The Sarkozy administration should focus on developing policies that encourage job creation, a new social perspective, and greater religious toleration. Using these methods and select civic measures, the French government will be able to purposefully and successfully begin the full integration of French Muslim immigrants. Job creation is a crucial step in improving the economic, and subsequently the social prospects, of Muslim immigrants. Low skill jobs are the most important. Muslim youth are an excellent fit for these types of jobs because they will take them. The high unemployment rate among these communities, the low education level, and the hard life many experienced in their native countries cause them to be open to jobs that many French natives would not want, though this varies somewhat by generation. France also needs people to fill low skill, low wage jobs because of its ageing issue. 7 UN and INSEE (Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques) estimates indicate that at current fertility rates one-third of the French population will be over sixty years old and eighty to eighty-five percent will be twenty years or older in These figures signal a need for France to increase its youth population and primary labor force through increased fertility rates and immigration. The French can cater to Muslim immigrants and their need for jobs, improving the latter s economic status and bringing them into the French societal framework as important laborers, while having their own needs met simultaneously. The administration should contract private firms to conduct renewal projects to rebuild the banlieue (city suburbs). 9 The government should encourage the firms involved to hire the Muslim immigrants who live in the banlieue as a portion of their labor force. Hiring them provides immigrants work and the company with individuals who have a personal incentive to see the job done well and rapidly. To hire immigrants, though, will require adjustment of restrictive labor codes that do so much to keep poor immigrants not least poor Muslim immigrants from finding work and integrating themselves into French life." 10 In some instances the loosening of labor codes will encourage people to move to find employment. As Muslim immigrants move in greater numbers, more intermixing of residential areas will occur. This will facilitate furthering the integration process at home as well as at work. Loosening the labor laws already tried once and rejected by the people will require a proactive public relations campaign to overcome the significant left-right Spring Summer

114 BrYan Groves divide. Those most opposed to loosening the labor laws are those on the left, yet they are the same ones who are generally favorable to the Muslim population. Hence, bridging this gap is realistic but will require substantial political negotiation. On the religious front of integration, the 2003 creation of the Conseil Français du Culte Musulman is an initial step in the right direction. The council has begun an imam training program which offers a moderate perspective on Islam. Because of the lack of moderate alternatives outside of the training centers France has established, the country s second step should be to expand the number of these sites. 11 The third step is to encourage the French Muslim community to utilize the imams trained by these centers. This step is especially important because community acceptance is more important to the Muslim community than is formal religious training. 12 The monitoring of all mosques is a fourth measure that helps the overall objective of preventing a radical Islamic message from being perpetuated within France. 13 Lastly, when radical Imams do preach extremist messages, French enforcement measures must be handled appropriately and legally, with discrimination and after gathering substantial evidence. Government failure in this area risks reinforcing the perception of police prejudice and hence further alienating the segment of the population it is attempting to integrate. Certain civic measures can also make a difference over time and when implemented in conjunction with one another. One of these is the enforcement of compulsory primary and secondary school education. France has already implemented this, making school mandatory until the age of sixteen. 14 Other potential methods include providing individual incentives to Muslims to earn French citizenship, to attend and graduate from institutions of higher education, 15 to move outside the banlieue, 16 to vote, to run for office, and to participate in government and public service at all levels. France also needs immigration offices at local levels throughout the country, whose purpose would be to assist all immigrants with their transition to living in France. In conjunction with these offices, France should start an informal and voluntary sponsorship program through which any immigrant can receive ongoing, personalized assistance from a current French citizen. This system would provide opportunities for interaction where cooperation is important. This could motivate natives and immigrants to move past their differences to find common ground and help immigrants adapt to the local culture. It could also make it more difficult for natives to continue negative stereotyping. While some natives may still have very real concerns about losing their jobs, any interaction that fosters positive relationships will help 112 Yale Journal of International Affairs

115 A Two Pronged Approach for France and its muslims mitigate that. Finally, France should publicly celebrate French heroes from all backgrounds. The government needs to be more vocal about telling the success stories of Muslims alongside those of French natives. The captain of the French national soccer team, Zinedine Zidane, is one such story. Zidane is of Algerian descent and is a perfect example of a successful French Muslim. 17 Zidane may be the most well known French Muslim, but among the five million Muslims in the country, there are surely many other great success stories worth telling beyond that of members of the national soccer team. Making some of these known in meaningful ways is a great way to demonstrate to all Muslims that the government values them as productive members of French society. It is also a great method by which to begin changing native French perceptions of Muslims in general and Muslim immigrants in particular. Conclusion Despite the challenges, integration of and assimilation by Muslim immigrants into French culture can occur. Armenian immigrants provide just one of multiple France should start an informal and voluntary s p o n s o r s h i p p ro g r a m t h r o u g h w h i c h a n y immigrant can receive ongoing, personalized assistance from a current French citizen. success stories from France s rich history of integrating immigrants. Reflection on their story offers hope for the successful integration and assimilation of Muslim immigrants. The Armenian community has found a way to adopt French culture while maintaining a strong sense of its own historical identity and cultural specificity." 18 The Armenian example demonstrates that immigrants to France can become French without abandoning their cultural, religious, or historical identity. Sarkozy s election and the creation of the Ministère de l Immigration, de l Intégration, de l Identité Nationale, et du Développement solidaire, offer more hope for this situation and a fresh start for France. One can reasonably argue that President Sarkozy is not the best person to implement the new ministry and the changes I suggest because of actions he took during the riots when he was head of the Ministre de l Intérieur et de l Aménagement du Territoire. However, while past governmental administrations were reticent to address the Muslim question, President Sarkozy quickly followed through on his campaign promise to create a new ministry department to handle illegal immigration, better integrating newcomers and protecting French identity. 19 " Spring Summer

116 BrYan Groves President Sarkozy s proactive approach offers hope that the French government is setting up an organization that will focus the necessary priority and resources on the appropriate components of the problem. Successful integration and assimilation of Muslim immigrants, however, will require more than another government bureau. It will involve economic, social, and religious dimensions. It will require both political actions by the government and actions by French citizens and Muslim immigrants. Throughout the multigenerational process, leadership will continue to be an important piece of the effort. Politicians at all levels will need to hear from immigrants as projects are started to ensure that immigrant needs are met. Adjustments will need to be made as shortfalls are noticed. The overall vision must be one of French unity and inclusiveness, as depicted by Illustration Two. It must demonstrate that President Sarkozy and Minister Hortefeux understand immigrants needs and that they desire to provide them with a better life. They must communicate hope while reminding the French people that the integration process is a long one, but one that can be successfully embarked on and realized with their support. Y -Claire Morelon and Maryam Shahabi served as lead editors for this article. 114 Yale Journal of International Affairs