Diplomacy & Crisis News

Que disent, après coup, les anciennes figures du régime de M. Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali des violations des droits humains commises alors ? À l'opposé des réactions célébrant le caractère historique du processus de justice transitionnelle mené par l'Instance vérité et dignité, il en existe d'autres qui (...) / Tunisie, Droits humains, Justice, Mouvement de contestation, Prison, Maghreb, Torture, Dictature, Répression - 2017/05

Coincée entre deux puissances qui voient en elle tantôt un grand marché, tantôt un pion géopolitique, l'Ukraine, sous la conduite de son gouvernement autoritaire, zigzague sur une voie étroite. / Europe, Europe de l'Est, Russie, Ukraine, Économie, Énergie, Géopolitique, Nationalisme, Relations (...) / Europe, Europe de l'Est, Russie, Ukraine, Économie, Énergie, Géopolitique, Nationalisme, Relations internationales, Relations bilatérales - 2013/12

Trois ans après le début du conflit entre Kiev et la région séparatiste du Donbass, aucune solution ne semble se dégager. Le président ukrainien souffle le chaud et le froid, hésitant entre l'instauration d'un blocus ferme et le rétablissement de liens économiques contrôlés. Du côté de Donetsk, la (...) / Europe de l'Est, Russie, Ukraine, Armée, Conflit, Géopolitique, Relations internationales, Autodétermination des peuples, Frontières, Relations bilatérales - 2017/05

Des tensions inédites, et particulièrement vives, entre les juges et les responsables politiques auront marqué la campagne présidentielle française. Au-delà des événements particuliers de la compétition électorale, magistrats et élus rejouent ici une pièce ancienne mais actualisée par la montée en (...) / Europe, Europe de l'Est, Droit, Droits humains, État, Histoire, Idées, Politique, Europe centrale - 2017/05

Peacekeeping operations have become a fixture within the international arena and core practice of international organizations since the end of the Cold War. However, these operations, particularly those run by the United Nations, have had a torrid relationship with intelligence collection and analysis. There has been consistent opposition by member states to establishing an intelligence office within the UN, and, up until 2017, the UN had no procedures for acquiring and analyzing information in support of their peacekeeping operations. Despite this improvement, not having a standing office capable of independently deciphering and combing through the piles of information has severely limited the ability of the UN to prepare and support its peacekeeping operations. The current policy is too reliant on the kindness of its member states which does nothing but create a situation where vital information is given based on national interest. However, a permanent office capable of doing so in a way that protects civilians and the reputation of the UN is not only easily conceivable but entirely feasible.

Two reports commissioned by the UN Secretary-General have begged the UN to establish an office for acquiring and analyzing information pertinent to the operation’s success. The Brahimi Report, which debuted in 2000, detailed an office capable of collecting and analyzing data for the Secretariat to plan peacekeeping operations and identify potential conflicts. The Brahimi Report notes that an information analysis office would allow for developing short-term and long-term mission planning and crisis response. Had this office been implemented, it would have allowed several peacekeeping operations to possess adequate resources and prevented disasters like the kidnapping of over 200 UN peacekeepers in Sierra Leone, which happened that same year. The UN was again warned of the dangers of being unable to independently analyze information in the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO Report) report, which further pleaded for the UN Secretariat to expand its analytical capabilities to support peace operations. The UN took these cries for reform and formulated an intelligence and information analysis policy that relied upon member states willingly turning it over to the UN, potentially exposing their sources, methods, and collection from peacekeepers.

The unreliability of the status quo therefore necessitates the creation of an office as described by both reports and addresses any potential concerns laid out by UN member states. This office must be impartial, assist in the planning of peacekeeping operations, and make use of emerging technologies.

Covert and clandestine operations have been a prominent feature within states’ intelligence agencies since their very inception. This is likely a feature that has probably led to the opposition of an intelligence analysis service. However, the rise of social media platforms and the Internet have led to the expansion of open-source intelligence (OSINT) tools that make information gathering and analysis accessible to even the average person. Therefore, an intelligence analysis office that the UN would not need to rely on secretive methods; instead, they would be utilizing techniques and practices widely available worldwide. The only real need for classification by a UN information office would be to protect human intelligence (HUMINT) sources for their safety.

Intelligence needs to be politically independent and free of bias to be effectively understood and respected by decision-makers, especially when coming from the UN. Moreover, since this office would need to be constantly analyzing information to plan for peacekeeping operations, states may feel threatened by being labeled as a threat to international peace and security. As such, an office meant to support peacekeeping operations would need to be professional and adhere to the same recruitment and hiring practices that all UN employees go through. Of course, maintaining the utmost professionalism is crucial to any intelligence agency. Still, it will be incredibly essential to one serving at the bequest of the UN; an international organization meant to support international peace and security.

Being able to assess and take action on information accurately is crucial to the success of any operation, especially peacekeeping ones employed by the UN. Without a longstanding office, the ability of peacekeepers to conduct themselves will eventually diminish and render them unable to protect civilians, one of their highest priorities effectively. However, new technologies and robust professionalism by analysts can make for the perfect early warning system for crises that may require the presence of UN peacekeepers. As a result, these operations will be better resourced, planned, and overall more effective.

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Peter Roberto is a M.A. candidate at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations where he is the Incoming Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Diplomacy & International Relations and conducted research with the National Security Fellowship.

Délaissée par la métropole, dont elle dépend pour presque tout, la Guyane reste coupée économiquement de ses voisins. La porosité de sa frontière la rend toutefois perméable aux trafics d'or comme au prosélytisme évangélique. En première ligne, les Amérindiens jouent leur avenir en tant que peuple. / France (...) / France Outre-mer, France, Guyane, Christianisme, Amérindiens, Inégalités, Minorité nationale, Droits des minorités, Pauvreté, Religion, Spiritualité, Amérique du Sud - 2017/05

For United States citizens, policy developments in the Americas were always tied to the belief that the United States saw the region as their own geographical backyard. The ascent of the United States as a world power following the Spanish-American Wars and their relative economic stability compared to Europe following the First and Second World Wars turned them into a powerful hegemony in the Americas.

Balancing the hegemony of the United States through Soviet ties was done on a few occasions during the greater Cold War era. The trend of Left wing dictatorships, often based around narcotics or energy expropriation followed in the post 2000 era. The last decade and a half enshrined these divides and saw them diminish internally as US policy remained as paper projects never implemented. Foreign actors entered the region during this more recent and somewhat lost period of US policy towards Latin America. While a lack of US influence in the region has had its positive and negative results, the current policy approach doubles down on mediocrity as regional crises are challenged by local hegemons in Latin America.

The recent Summit of the Americas was hosted by the United States who clearly had other regions on its mind in 2022. While health policy was a focus of the Summit, the real challenges faced by one of the hardest hit regions by Covid will have little impact as Covid numbers wain. Like for all of us, inflation and employment is dominating their focus as economic chaos and recovery create new challenges and harm citizens in the US, Canada and Latin America simultaneously.

While these more serious issues were not the main target of policy approaches during the Summit of the Americas, they already are having a grand effect on the region itself. Countries excluded during the Summit have already taken to increase ties with Russia as a buffer against the US. Venezuela has been upgrading its military with some of the most advanced Russian jets and missile systems for a generation at this point and has close ties with Iran and China. Venezuelan refugees in Latin America make up one of the largest displaced populations in the world, and while they did give some funding for those issues at the Summit, there was little focus on the cause of the Venezuelan refugee crisis and Human Rights crisis taking place within ballistic missile striking distance of the United States.

The Summit did little to change the policy of restricting North American energy while a displacement of Russian energy is a key tool to ending the War in Ukraine. Openly dropping human rights based restrictions on OPEC members like Venezuela and Iran in order to displace Russian oil is simply fuelling more abuses against Venezuelan refugees, human rights activists in Iran and those in their regions being affected by funding further conflict. Without North American oil and gas displacing Russia’s funding source for weapons of war, they are just displacing conflict. Adding conflict in Latin America and other regions with the intent to help Ukraine will simply result in more atrocities and acts of war in other parts of the world. There is no point in holding a Summit of the Americas if the two biggest economies, the USA and Canada, do not intend to enact policies to reduce conflict in the region and abroad.

China’s economic investment in Latin America has been taking place for over a decade and a half at this point, tying even US allies like Colombia, Brazil and Argentina to Chinese infrastructure projects and natural resource dependency. While diversifying their economies away from the United States is a logical and beneficial decision, linking to only one other producer will likely have a similar effect as in the past where agro-economies rise and fall with the international price of their natural resource goods. The focus of industrialisation in one form or another was the strategy they used to ensure a flexible and diverse economic base in many Latin American countries for generations. It seems like the stability of long term policies have waned, diversifying customers as opposed to creating more economic opportunities for citizens in Latin America. This has not been as much of an issue in IT hubs in Brazil and manufacturing in Mexico, but the economic situation in those countries can change rapidly with the US Administration challenging Brazil’s leadership and Mexico’s President declaring himself absent from the Summit of the Americas altogether.

In 2022, the United States should focus on re-balancing their role in the region with that of China and take serious steps to reduce added conflict in Latin America. While agreements fade and alliances break apart, at the bare minimum the United States should act as an engine for economic diversity and a cap on added international conflict in Latin America. At this point at the end of the Summit, they have barely achieved any of those essential goals.

Tribunaux d'exception, torture, prisons secrètes, Parlements phagocytés par les exécutifs, écoutes illégales, etc. : au nom des impératifs sécuritaires, les acquis de la démocratie libérale sont, un à un, rognés aux Etats-Unis et au Royaume-Uni. Rarement la distance entre démocratie réelle et démocratie (...) / États-Unis, France, Royaume-Uni, Démocratie, Droits humains, Terrorisme, Torture - 2006/09

The Reformer’s View?

On April 27 the Department of State announced a fundamental change to its process for selecting new career Foreign Service Officers.  Where candidates have long had to pass the written Foreign Service Test for consideration, that test would now be one of a number of considerations that would be considered by a panel.  Exact criteria and explicit objectives for the panel to follow were not announced.  The new process would take effect for the June application cycle.

 

It is hard to discern exact motives for this change.  Those who noticed did not generally hold a strong brief for the old test, but noted its original intent to promote professionalism.  Few see particular merit in the new process as announced.  One comment suggested using the old test to screen politically appointed ambassadors.  While few wanted to say so, one media outlet did cast the change as a diversity promotion move.  The possibility for polarized politics to dominate any consideration of new processes certainly exists, whatever the exact motives behind the change.

 

The change is a case of carts before horses.  Particularly for a people-based function such as the conduct of diplomacy, new personnel should be suited to the demands of the function.  Those demands should follow from an institutional understanding of what, in this case, diplomacy is and how it should work.  Traditional ambassadors knew their kings personally, and even in the post-industrial age any permanent official representative of a sovereign should know that sovereign intimately, to represent it and provide counsel.  America’s is the people, defined in the Declaration of Independence as “we” who hold certain “self-evident” truths.  U.S. diplomats need an engrained sense for, and clear fluency in,  that identity and its nuances, first inculcated as a pillar of their professional formation.

 

The Department of State needs to ascertain its institutional character, so that any formative process or intake process create a body of diplomats who know their fundamental mission.  A   two-paragraph announcement on short notice that changes something as significant as the selection process might well signal that other basic functions might also undergo far-reaching, summarily-declared, overhaul.  The Department of State could end up remaking itself from the ground up without naming its mission and with no deliberation in public discourse.   Someone needs to ask that first question.

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Russian T-90M, its most advanced tank on the battlefied in Ukraine was destroyed by possible artillery strike.

Russia seemed to have pulled back many of its forces to the eastern regions of Ukraine in order to consolidate the takeover of the eastern regions of Lugansk, Donbas and the surrounding area. It is difficult to measure what the end goal of the Russian forces may be at this point. Ukraine’s response in moving forces south to retake Kherson and moving their forces protecting Kyiv into the area around Kharkiv may lead to quickly shifting battle lines or produce a stalemate as Ukraine takes to the offensive. The fate of many of Russia’s armoured units may burden Ukraine’s forces if Ukraine chooses to enter fortified urban areas that are filled with anti-tank equipment that has proven very effective against BMPs, T-72s, T-80s and even T-90s, systems that both Russia and Ukraine use in this conflict.

While modern tanks and weapons systems started the conflict, many of them were beaten by Cold War era technology with significant numbers and tactics to defeat modernised tanks and aircraft. Much of the success in this conflict comes from a tradition of defending the territory with weapons designed mostly for defense. The advanced missile technology developed over generations was built around keeping a Second World War type invasion out of the Soviet Union, with Ukraine being the most likely battleground for the fate of the Soviet Union. Taking out Ukraine’s Servant of the People and his Cabinet was never a simple task, and Ukraine was designed as the best defense structure in the world in the 1990s apart from Moscow itself.

What seems to be occurring is that Moscow will want to claim some sort of victory and will try to keep the eastern regions and maintain its hold on Crimea. Ukraine’s push to retake Kherson and protect the flank around Odessa is important as Russia may try to bottleneck Ukraine’s Black Sea access, which would mean Ukraine would become landlocked and will suffer economically in the long run as a result. While Poland has made agreements to help Ukraine remain competitive as an export economy by proposing a shared customs regime and opening its northern sea access to Ukraine in good faith, a Russian move to dominate the Ukrainian coast is likely a strategic long term goal besides claiming Eastern Ukraine for Russian backed forces.

The weakening of Russia’s view worldwide will likely have a massive effect on Putin and Russia if countries surrounding Russia see them as a Paper Bear. If Russia ends up losing Crimea for example, there is little keeping Putin in office after that act. Countries that are dependent on Russia’s protection will likely be challenged further as well. Actions in the Caucasus region may flare up as they did recently between Azerbaijan and Russian backed Armenia. India may try to source more of its defense equipment from France or other NATO allies as confidence in their T-90MS tank force diminishes with pictures of burning T-90M being shown in Ukraine.

China, that always shared a border with Russia in a Cold Peace may look to consolidate old conflicts with the knowledge that the PLA could likely stand up to modern Russian equipment in the field. The conflict in the Middle East will likely have the biggest result, as Russian forces supporting President Assad in Syria may have to re-engage in the region with less funds, less equipment and less of an appetite for the loss of young Russian soldiers in a foreign war. Iran’s S-300 systems and first generation TOR missiles may no longer be seen as the threat they once were, and knowledge in defeating those systems will leave a gap in their air defense.

Much of the prolonged conflict may simply be a result of saving face where losses have become hard to spin as a point of national pride. Diplomacy may serve the world well here as stability becomes questionable from Europe, through the Middle East towards much of Asia. A perfect storm of negligent policy decisions has lead to tragedy, applying further such policy decisions to quell the first fire will make it much worse. What is a universal truth in 2022 is that voting matters, as these issues will certainly affect your daily life to some degree.

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Shireen Abu Akleh, a well-regarded Palestinian journalist, has become the next martyr in the Israel-Palestine Conflict. On May 11, she stood with her colleagues in the occupied West Bank. While wearing her blue press vest, which discerned her from combatants, Abu Akleh was struck in the head by unexpected gunfire.

Unsurprisingly, both sides of the conflict have spun clashing narratives following her death. Israel claims she got caught in crossfire initiated by Palestinian fighters. Palestinians claim Israel Defense Forces murdered Abu Akleh.  Accounts from eyewitnesses at the scene, as well as video footage, seem to support the latter. According to multiple sources, no Palestinian fighters were present at the time of her death. Satha Hanaysha, a journalist working alongside Abu Akleh, told CNN that IDF targeted the group intentionally. According to Hanaysha, the press followed regular protocol on the morning of the attack. This protocol consists of making themselves known to Israeli forces before approaching a scene. Despite identifying themselves at the entrance to Jenin Refugee Camp, the group of journalists were greeted by gunfire. An independent Dutch organization found that Israeli forces likely fired the bullet that killed Abu Akleh.

The United States has forged a strong relationship with Israel over the last fifty years. U.S. leaders have continually hailed Israel as a “vibrant democracy” and “one of the most successful democracies in the world.” These words ignore Israel’s long history of violence. The unjust killing of Shireen Abu Akleh has reminded us of the fragility of Israel’s “moral character.” She is sadly yet another in a long line of tragedies brought on by Israel’s poor human rights record. In 2021, Palestinian journalist Yusef Abu Hussein died in an Israeli air raid. He worked as a broadcaster for the Voice of al-Aqsa radio station. Al-Jazeera reported that his home was intentionally targeted. In 2018, Israeli forces shot Palestinian journalist Ahmed Abu Hussein while he covered protests in Gaza. Like Shireen Abu Akleh, he adorned his blue press vest when he died. These stories are not isolated events – Israeli forces have killed at least 45 journalists since 2000.

Israel has contended with its own violence by leading self-investigations. It is not difficult to imagine why an accused party cannot credibly lead their own investigation. However, Israel has done so for years. In 2018, Israeli police reacted violently to Palestinian protests in the Gaza Strip. They opened fire on hundreds of unarmed civilians, killing over two hundred Palestinians. The international community demanded Israel allow an investigation of the mass casualties. Israeli leaders obliged; they opened an investigation on their own military. The investigation indicted one Israeli soldier for the murder of a 14-year-old Palestinian. The other 214 victims received no justice.

In 2021, the International Criminal Court launched an investigation into the events of 2018. Israel refused to cooperate, instead firing claims of anti-Semitism. Bringing justice to victims of state-sponsored violence is not anti-Semitic. Rather, it contributes to the creation of a safer environment for those on both sides. Israel cannot be a contributing member of the international community if it continues to oppose international bodies. The United Nations, for example, has attempted to launch multiple probes into alleged Israeli crimes. Israel repeatedly refuses to cooperate. This only prevents transparent investigations and aggravates the conflict.

Israel claims it possesses the ability to conduct its own investigations – if this is true, it should have no problem allowing an international body to oversee. If Israel can address these incidents with full transparency, perhaps it can move one step closer to ending the violence. As for the United States, President Biden should advocate for a U.S.-led investigation into Abu Akleh’s death. If the United States wants to continue to support human rights across the world, it cannot turn a convenient blind eye to Israel.