Diplomacy & Defense Think Tank News

Opinión - 15/7/2015
Federico Steinberg
Como nos hemos acercado más cerca que nunca al abismo del Grexit y parece que por el momento hemos conseguido evitarlo, no está de más tomar un poco de perspectiva y ver qué hemos aprendido los europeos de este lamentable proceso.

La región de Oriente Medio y el Norte de África está pasando por una profunda reconfiguración geopolítica. Desde el comienzo de la primavera árabe en 2011, el área ha pasado de tener grandes esperanzas depositadas en la democratización a una espiral de fragmentación, inseguridad y fragilidad. La competición por hacerse con el poder y la influencia en el mundo árabe tiene cada vez más precedencia sobre el deseo de reforma política. En particular, aquellos Estados que dicen apoyar la democracia se enfrentan a dilemas irreconciliables, dado que buscan al mismo tiempo avanzar con sus intereses geopolíticos. Este nuevo libro de FRIDE esboza los perfiles geopolíticos y las políticas de seis potencias regionales clave (Arabia Saudí, Catar, Egipto, Irán, Israel y Turquía) y siete actores externos influyentes (Alemania, China, Estados Unidos, Francia, Rusia, el Reino Unido y la Unión Europea) y examina cómo sus intereses geopolíticos están afectando las perspectivas de democracia a lo largo de Oriente Medio.

El Sahel es un punto caliente para el cambio climático. Desde 1970, las temperaturas en la zona han aumentado casi 1º C, un ritmo que casi duplica la media mundial. Las precipitaciones son cada vez más variables y las tormentas y sequías más frecuentes, mientras que los Estados frágiles de la región no cuentan con la capacidad necesaria para adaptarse a los cambios relacionados con el clima. Asimismo, las débiles instituciones, la inestabilidad política, la desigualdad y las reclamaciones históricas podrían, junto con el cambio climático, agravar aún más las tensiones existentes o provocar nuevos conflictos. Los actores internacionales pueden ayudar a los Estados del Sahel a afrontar los desafíos relacionados con el clima y el conflicto mediante intervenciones para la construcción de la paz que ayuden a desarrollar una resistencia al cambio climático, así como a través de respuestas que contribuyan a evitar el conflicto.

Since the tragic bombing of the UN headquarters in Iraq in 2003, a concerted effort has been made to improve and strengthen security arrangements across the UN system. However, too often, security issues are perceived as primarily technical matters that are not prioritized as strategically and politically important.

This report takes stock of the strategic impact of safety and security for effective peace operations by outlining the evolving, increasingly hostile security context into which operations are being deployed and its implications for personnel.

The authors assess existing UN management structures, policies, and processes to identify potential areas of reform. As they examine the diverse range of challenges and considerations for improving security of UN peace operations, they argue that effective security is about protecting UN personnel while enabling, not limiting, operational activity.

The authors offer the following recommendations for UN member states and the Secretariat to improve safety and security in UN peace operations:

• Extend responsibility collectively across the UN for a shared understanding of the security situation and improvements in the mandating, resourcing, planning, and execution of peace operations.
• Approach safety and security issues holistically, and consolidate them under the UN Department of Safety and Security.
• Apply a comprehensive policy on crisis management across all peace operations and country teams accompanied by a mandatory regime of crisis-management simulation exercises.
• Revise the assumptions on which the UN Security Management System is based, and tailor security models to mission mandates and the prevailing security environment.
• Clarify how UN peace operations should function in asymmetric threat environments when they lack capabilities, such as adequate medical support or evacuation.
• Recruit and train security personnel to high professional standards across all missions and ensure that they hold sufficient seniority at UN headquarters and in missions.
• Establish political and financial incentives to address the gap between peace operations’ mandates and allocated resources.
• Develop a professional intelligence system to enhance situational awareness for better mandate implementation.
• Clarify the legal protections for the UN under international law, and ensure a shared understanding of security responsibilities between the UN and the host state.

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Jean-Marie Guéhenno, President and CEO of the International Crisis Group and the former Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, offered a bold observation to an IPI audience about the United Nations. “The UN, sadly, is a very risk averse organization,” he declared. “It’s much better not to take risks for a career at the UN. But it’s much better for the UN to take risks.”

Drawing upon his own tenure as Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations from 2000-2008, a period of unprecedented growth for peacekeeping, he lamented the difficulty for UN leadership to “take some calculated risks,” because of an organizational culture which discourages them from doing so.

“I do believe it is very important for leaders in the UN to encourage risk-taking up to a point,” he said. “Intelligent risk-taking. Often it’s not the case if the staff feel that if they do something wrong, they will be hanged. It is not good. They have to be encouraged to take that risk.”

Discussing his new memoir, The Fog of Peace, on July 14th, Mr. Guéhenno explained the book’s title. “It was important in a book to convey the fog of action, the confusion, and uncertainty,” he said. The title also served as a metaphor for the haze of decision-making in peacekeeping operations. “That is at the heart of peacekeeping,” he said. “It’s all about tradeoffs. It’s about taking some risks, measuring them. But you only know in hindsight whether you have been right or wrong.”

Mr. Guéhenno’s reflection on his time in office remains pertinent, and he identified and offered solutions for key challenges facing peacekeeping operations. While recognizing that peacekeeping inherently involves the use of force, he said force itself should not be overdone.

“Force could never achieve by itself any political result,” he said. “It can be one element in a much broader strategy. If it is anything more than that, it is bound to disappoint.”

He also noted the need to set realistic goals at the outset of a peacekeeping operation, declaring, “The idea that through force you are going to stabilize a country is an illusion.”

Developing his thoughts on force and intervention, Mr. Guéhenno emphasized the importance of his having left Europe for New York. Here he interacted with a diverse group of leaders at the UN that changed his perspective on the concept of sovereignty.

“We have to understand the position of weaker countries,” he said. “The only thing that they have to assert themselves, to protect themselves from the enormous imbalance of power, is this concept of sovereignty, and that should be acknowledged.”

Continuing with the theme of sovereignty, he commented on calls for the UN to return to a focus on prevention, instead of continually addressing conflict after it breaks out. But, he conceded it would be have to be done with care.

“Countries are like human beings,” he said. “They don’t like checkups. They don’t like being told they are not doing well, that they need a treatment.”

He went on to praise UN regional offices as one means of doing so, “provided the person in charge of the office is the right person. This is a way for the UN to go to a country without flagging too much the country is in a state of crisis.”

Looking ahead, Mr. Guéhenno identified a key challenge for the next UN Secretary-General, to be elected in 2016. As the nature of conflicts is changing, he said, the UN must adjust as an organization to enable taking a more holistic view of the challenges before it.

“You need to look at all the levers you have, the troops, the political, the development, and see how you orchestrate them in a way that will maximize the influence of the UN,” he said. “I think the UN presently is not very well organized to do that.”

He concluded by recommending “having some kind of a planning capacity that is independent of any particular department, that looks at those issues in a comprehensive way, without thinking ‘Oh, it’s peacekeeping, it has to be peacekeepers,’ ‘it’s political, it has to be a political mission.’”

He argued that an independent planning commission could enable the UN to overcome the “silo” mentality of its various departments, to instead act as one by looking “at a situation on its merit, and not on its bureaucratic merit.”

As the UN is being examined by various high-level reviews for its 70th anniversary, Mr. Guéhenno reminded the audience that though a humanitarian organization, the UN should not shy away from politics.

“If we do not have a good understanding of the political dynamics of the situation in which we are getting engaged, we are unlikely to make headway,” he said. “And the biggest weakness of any UN deployment, or any deployment for that matter, whether it is the US or the UN, any deployment, is the fact that there is not a serious understanding of the dynamics of the country.”

Further, he questioned the nature of the relationship between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the UN Security Council, where the latter can politicize justice by threatening referral to the Court.

“When you see justice as a pressure point, not justice for justice sake, you are in trouble because justice cannot be turned on and off. It should not be. Justice is about justice, it is not a pressure point.”

As the nature of conflict has changed to become both more transnational and involve more non-state actors, Mr. Guéhenno’s final piece of advice for the UN was to remember its origins as a forum for dialogue. “I think, for the United Nations, one essential is to be prepared to talk to anybody who is prepared to talk to the United Nations,” he explained. “And that means sadly that a number of interlocutors will not be reachable because at the moment they would not accept to talk to the United Nations, they would kill whoever wants to talk to them. But this has to be, in my view, the posture.”

He added that to foster constructive dialogue, it is essential to talk to everyone on all sides of an issue, “and I think Western governments, in that respect, have not had the right policy. Because if you have a policy that you talk to anybody that is willing to talk, then talking does not become legitimization.”

IPI Senior Adviser for External Relations Warren Hoge moderated the conversation.

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Türkei‐Experte Seufert über Tücken der Regierungsbildung und die AKP im Wandel.

Research Fellow of  ELIAMEP Dr Filippa Chatzistavrou discusses the new agreement signed in Brussels and the Grexit probability in an article she wrote on Alterecoplus. The article  is available here.

Research Fellow of ELIAMEP Dr Eleni Panagiotarea discussed the Greek crisis on Bloomberg. The interview was given on 13 July 2015 and is available here.

Opinión - 14/7/2015
Ignacio Molina
En este momento de extrema fragilidad del proyecto de integración europea, con desconfianzas crecientes entre las élites y los ciudadanos, y a poco de que arranque en paralelo el debate sobre el Brexit, es cuando paradójicamente resulta más necesario plantear un salto de legitimidad y de reducción de los costes de transacción en forma de unión política.

Der Ukraine-Konflikt macht deutlich, dass Russland in seiner Auseinandersetzung mit dem Westen eine eigene Kalkulation hat, die nicht ökonomisch orientiert ist.

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Ambassador Gert Rosenthal told an IPI audience July 13th that a new review published that day had focused in on excessive “fragmentation” in UN peacebuilding activities.

Ambassador Rosenthal, who serves as Chair of the Advisory Group of Experts on the Review of the UN Peacebuilding Architecture, said the report proved “different parts of the organization are not working well together.”

Ambassador Rosenthal, a former Guatemalan Foreign Minister, learned much about the intricacies of the UN system through a long diplomatic career in which he served as the his country’s Permanent Representative to the UN from 1999-2004 and again in 2008-2014, when Guatemala was on the Security Council. He opened the panel discussion by stating, “The whole thrust of our report is to overcome the fragmentation, and introduce a little more coherence into the work of the house.”

Ambassador Rosenthal also made the point that funding for peacebuilding is inadequate. “It really is remarkable that we dedicate more than $8 billion a year for peace operations,” he said, “but we dedicate a small fraction of that for anything we call peacebuilding, so we would like to have a better balance.”

Anis Bajwa, a member of the advisory group, pointed out that peacebuilding, to be effective, must be sustained over a period of time after a conflict ends. “Just ensuring that the guns go silent is not enough for building peace,” he declared.

Explaining the choice of title for the report, “The Challenge of Sustaining Peace,” Mr. Bajwa emphasized the need to do more to prevent conflict. Peacebuilding is an activity of “the whole cycle of peace and conflict, and it should not be associated only with post-conflict situations,” he said. “That’s why we have preferred to call it ‘sustaining peace’ in our report, rather than just ‘building peace.’”

Asked whether the report dealt with enhancing women’s participation in peacebuilding, Saraswathi Menon, also a member of panel, answered, “The Peacebuilding Commission probably could do more in advocating gender equality, women’s rights, and women’s empowerment as part of national peacebuilding priorities.” She added that it was necessary for the Peacebuilding Commission to address “the impact of conflict on women, the contribution that women themselves make, and the need to address the specific needs of women and girls.”

The Peacebuilding Commission was created in 2005, and this assessment evaluates how the institutions are performing 10 years on. It also comes as many other high-level reviews are being conducted at the UN, for the organization’s 70th anniversary.

Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support, said that one area where peacebuilding had made progress was in its relationship with regional organizations. “Certainly last year, the Peacebuilding Commission, I think, stepped up quite significantly the relationship with the African Union,” he said, “and through that political relationship, also the substantive work that was going on, in actually addressing illicit transfer of funds, the issue of national revenue generation, etc.”

A key point made by all of the speakers was that different aspects of peacebuilding responsibilities lie across the UN system, with a myriad of departments. The General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, and their subsidiaries, lack both the capacity and funding to communicate their shared responsibilities to each other in a way that might create informed, organization-wide planning for peacebuilding, the speakers argued.

That is why the Peacebuilding Commission has unique potential, as Ambassador Rosenthal described it. Looking ahead to the reform the commission should be contemplating, he said, “What we really need is for the Peacebuilding Commission to be able to fulfill the role of a bridge, which would bring together the peace, the human rights, and the development.”

IPI Senior Adviser Youssef Mahmoud moderated the conversation.

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In den USA gibt es bislang allenfalls Ansätze einer Debatte über die längerfristigen Folgen des Krieges im Osten der Ukraine für die europäische Sicherheit. Dabei geht es in erster Linie um die bilateralen Beziehungen der USA zu Russland, die Zukunft der Nato sowie den Stellenwert der nuklearen Abschreckung. Multilaterale Institutionen und Normenwerke jenseits der Nato – nicht zuletzt die Organisation für Sicherheit und Zusammenarbeit in Europa (OSZE) – spielen in der amerikanischen Fachdebatte dagegen nur eine sehr untergeordnete Rolle.

13/7/2015
Real Instituto Elcano y CIDOB
Los días 2 y 3 de julio de 2015, los presidentes, directores y buena parte de los investigadores del Real Instituto Elcano y de CIDOB se reunieron en Madrid (como habían hecho en Barcelona en 2014), con el objetivo de compartir diagnósticos y propuestas respecto a algunos de los temas clave de la agenda internacional que tienen especial incidencia en la sociedad española, así como para analizar la tarea de los think tanks como centros de pensamiento y generación de ideas.

Angesichts der Verhandlungen über den Verbleib Griechenlands in der Eurozone blieb dem Europäischen Rat vom 25./26. Juni 2015 so gut wie kein Raum für das eigentliche Gipfelthema, die Weiterentwicklung der Gemeinsamen Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik (GSVP). In Anbetracht der Krisen und Konflikte an ihren Außengrenzen steht die EU jedoch nicht nur im Inneren vor einer Bewährungsprobe. Außenpolitisch muss sie sowohl eine thematische Spaltung (Flüchtlingsproblematik vs. russische Aggression) wie eine geographische (Süden vs. Osten) verhindern und mehr Integration in der Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik wagen. Die im Vertrag von Lissabon vereinbarte Ständige Strukturierte Zusammenarbeit (SSZ) ist dafür das geeignete Vehikel. Deutschland sollte es durch konkrete Kooperationsvorschläge nutzbar machen.

Opinión - 13/7/2015
Ignacio Molina
Más allá de su resolución final, la crisis griega ha cambiado para siempre el espíritu de la construcción europea.

Die Parlamentswahlen vom 7. Juni brachten der regierenden AKP unerwartete Verluste. Eine stabile...

Bonn, 13.07.2015. Heute beginnt die UN-Konferenz zur Entwicklungsfinanzierung in Addis Abeba. Sie bildet den Auftakt von drei Weltgipfeln zu Schlüsselfragen globaler nachhaltiger Entwicklung in nur sechs Monaten. Der Finanzierungsgipfel soll die Grundlage für die UN-Generalversammlung im September 2015 in New York legen, auf der die Weltgemeinschaft die neue Post-2015-Agenda mit universellen Zielen für nachhaltige Entwicklung (Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs) beschließen wird. Gleichermaßen ist der erste Gipfel richtungsweisend für den Klimagipfel in Paris im Dezember, auf dem das Kyoto-Nachfolgeabkommen beschlossen werden soll, auch wenn die Klimafinanzierung offiziell nicht Thema der Addis-Konferenz ist. Es ist indes klar: ohne eine angemessene Finanzierung kann die Weltgemeinschaft weder die nachhaltigen Entwicklungsziele erreichen noch den Klimawandel bewältigen. Alle Akteure müssen Verantwortung übernehmen: private und öffentliche. Das heißt aber auch, dass sich alle Länder beteiligen. Einen großen Anteil müssen die Industrieländer bezahlen. Zum einen können die Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländer die SDGs nicht ohne ihre finanzielle Unterstützung erreichen. Zum anderen sind die Industrieländer die Hauptverursacher des Klimawandels. Daher müssen die Industrieländer wenigstens ihre bisher gemachten Zusagen einhalten. In Addis Abeba müssen sich die Industrieländer dazu bekennen, das bereits 1970 vereinbarte Ziel - 0,7 Prozent ihres Bruttonationaleinkommens für öffentliche Entwicklungsleistungen (Official Development Assistance, ODA) auszugeben -, einzuhalten. Die bisherige Bilanz ist ernüchternd. Bisher haben nur fünf Länder dieses Ziel erreicht: Luxemburg, Dänemark, Norwegen, Schweden und Großbritannien. Damit sie ihre Glaubwürdigkeit herstellen können, ist es notwendig, einen realistischen Zeitplan für die Umsetzung des 0,7-Prozent-Ziels zu vereinbaren. Die Europäische Union hat erklärt, das 0,7-Prozent-Ziel bis 2030 zu erreichen. Aber es ist dringend notwendig, konkrete Zwischenziele zu benennen. Die Industrieländer könnten sich in Addis beispielsweise dazu verpflichten, den Abstand zwischen dem aktuellen Niveau der öffentlichen Entwicklungsgelder und dem 0,7-Prozent-Ziel bis zum Jahr 2020 zu halbieren. Dies hat auch das Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) vorgeschlagen. Ohne konkrete Zeitpläne bleibt das 0,7-Prozent-Ziel ein leeres Versprechen. Darüber hinaus sollten die Schwellenländer in Zukunft auch mehr Verantwortung übernehmen und sich in Addis Abeba dazu verpflichten, ihre Entwicklungshilfe für arme Länder signifikant zu erhöhen. Auch dafür sollten sie ein konkretes Ziel und einen Stufenplan für dessen Erreichung vereinbaren. Die Verteilung der öffentlichen Entwicklungsleistungen muss sich ebenfalls zugunsten der ärmsten Länder ändern. Für diese Länder ist ODA die wichtigste externe Finanzierungsquelle, weil ihnen kaum private Finanzmittel zur Verfügung stehen. Im aktuellen Verhandlungsdokument für Addis Abeba vom 7. Juli wird ge-fordert, dass bis 2030 0,2 Prozent des Bruttonationaleinkommens an die ärmsten Länder fließt. Aber ist das ausreichend? Im Jahr 2009 hatten sich die Industrieländer in Kopenhagen verpflichtet, für Klimaschutz und Anpassung in Entwicklungsländern öffentliche und private Finanzierungsmittel bis 2020 auf jährlich 100 Mrd. USD zu erhöhen. Dieses Ziel hat die G7 auf ihrem diesjährigen Gipfel in Elmau zwar bekräftigt. Nach wie vor ist aber offen, wie diese Summe zwischen den öffentlichen und privaten Akteuren aufgeteilt wird. Darüber hinaus ist nicht klar, in welchen Schritten die Finanzmittel bis 2020 auf 100 Mrd. USD erhöht werden. Das heißt, es gibt keine konkreten Verpflichtungen für die kommenden fünf Jahre. Gleichermaßen ist die Verteilung der Mittel zur zum Teil geklärt. Wenn die Regierungen der Industrieländer ihren Anteil nicht konkretisieren und sich nicht zu einem Fahrplan für ihre Verpflichtungen bekennen, dann wird das 100-Milliarden-Ziel nicht erreicht werden und die Folgen des Klimawandels werden Entwicklungserfolge in anderen Bereichen zunehmend torpedieren. Auch wenn Klimafinanzierung nicht das Kernthema in Addis sein wird, ist es wichtig, es bereits in Addis aufzugreifen und erste Entscheidungen mit Blick auf die Klimakonferenz in Paris vorzubereiten. Die Partnerländer selbst müssen auch Verantwortung für die Finanzierung übernehmen. Der Löwenanteil der Finanzierung wird über das inländische Steuersystem und das Wachstum des Finanzsektors mobilisiert. Die Partnerländer müssen daher notwendige Reformen in ihren Steuersystemen und -verwaltungen umsetzen. Sie müssen das Steuersystem transparent ausgestalten und die Governance-Strukturen verbessern. Die Industrie- und Schwellenländer können beim Aufbau von geeigneten Steuersystemen wertvolle technische Hilfe leisten. Die Weltgemeinschaft hat in dieser Woche in Addis Abeba die einmalige Chance, durch die Sicherstellung der Finanzierung eine neue positive Dynamik für globa-le nachhaltige Entwicklung zu erzeugen. Die Industrieländer haben hier eine Vorreiterolle. Wir sollten die Chance nutzen und zum Wohle der Menschheit und unseres einzigen Planeten unsere Hausaufgaben machen.