Kristin Lord
By Kristin Lord
The White House and State Department are hard at work on two major new documents that will lay the foundation for America’s national security policy for the remainder of the Obama administration and possibly beyond: the National Security Strategy, rumoured for release this summer, and the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), slated for release later this year. The usual bureaucratic tussles will ensue about what should and should not be included in these documents, and the administration will inevitably struggle to determine priorities amid the unenviable palette of challenges and paucity of big opportunities.
One challenge, however, looms larger than the rest, and addressing it should be a centrepiece of these forthcoming strategy documents: the growing threat posed by global violence and the urgency of preventing violent conflict before it escalates. Prioritising these challenges is necessary because violent conflict threatens to derail progress on a host of other issues critical to US national interests and values. And doing so will also encourage US government agencies to develop more effective strategies and techniques for reducing violence.
Rising global violence is the challenge of our time. Serious conflicts now stretch across swaths of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, and they hold the potential to spread. Meanwhile, tensions are rising in the South China Sea, Myanmar, Ukraine and elsewhere. In most of these circumstances, the influence of international institutions is limited. The options available to US policymakers are lousy.
This rise in violence across the globe is not the challenge expected at this juncture.
For many, the end of the Cold War also ended the risk of war between great powers. The decade that followed saw negotiated peace agreements end lengthy -- and seemingly intractable -- civil wars. Rwanda began rebuilding after a horrible genocide, and wars in the Balkans concluded. More than a decade later, a newly elected President Barack Obama pledged to wind down the new era of conflict inaugurated by the terrorist attacks of 9/11. US troops withdrew from Iraq, Nato began to draw down its forces in Afghanistan, and conversations about how to cut the US defence budget commenced.
Yet violent conflict is now resurging, whether we like it or not. The growing scale and scope of the violence shocks both the heart and the conscience. It also harms American interests. Indeed, these conflicts now threaten every major element of America’s foreign policy, whether it’s economic growth or energy security, human development or human rights, counter-terrorism or illicit trafficking, environmental conservation or global health. It is a challenge US policymakers cannot view separately from their other agendas, since violence is likely to prevent -- or even destroy -- any progress.
The long-term costs of the Syrian conflict are also staggering. The United Nations estimates that 3 million children have dropped out of school since the onset of the crisis, leading Syria’s opposition president, Ahmad Jarba, to fear a generation of uneducated children who know only the language of violence and power.
Those in the national security community, for instance, must recognise more forthrightly the limits of force and invest in the long-term task of building peace. This entails not just the high politics of diplomacy, but also grass roots efforts to build political constituencies for peace. We need stronger and more effective instruments of nonviolent power, such as diplomacy, mediation, conflict resolution, nonviolent civic mobilisation, and public engagement through media and national dialogue, and we need to share them broadly with those in positions to mitigate violent conflicts.
Those in the peace building and conflict-resolution communities should also admit more forthrightly that force may have a role. Some dictators are simply too ruthless to come to the negotiating table if they think they are winning militarily. The National Security Strategy and QDDR can help to promote more effective modes of conflict management by showing how the legitimate use of force can support efforts at political institution-building, civil society development, and public dialogue to improve conditions in places like Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Myanmar -- and how the United States can help to support such efforts.
Finally, Americans must recognise that withdrawing from the world is not a viable option. Turning the nation’s back on resurgent violence will not make it go away. The consequences of violence will harm America too, in myriad ways, despite the natural protection of two oceans. The country’s economy, security and health are intricately intertwined with the rest of the world. Its self-image as a moral nation, not just one that protects its own interests, cannot withstand rigid isolationism. The National Security Strategy and QDDR can articulate, with clarity and vision, why global engagement is essential if America wants to be the strong and prosperous force for good in the world it imagines itself to be.
WP-BLOOMBERG
By Kristin Lord
The White House and State Department are hard at work on two major new documents that will lay the foundation for America’s national security policy for the remainder of the Obama administration and possibly beyond: the National Security Strategy, rumoured for release this summer, and the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), slated for release later this year. The usual bureaucratic tussles will ensue about what should and should not be included in these documents, and the administration will inevitably struggle to determine priorities amid the unenviable palette of challenges and paucity of big opportunities.
One challenge, however, looms larger than the rest, and addressing it should be a centrepiece of these forthcoming strategy documents: the growing threat posed by global violence and the urgency of preventing violent conflict before it escalates. Prioritising these challenges is necessary because violent conflict threatens to derail progress on a host of other issues critical to US national interests and values. And doing so will also encourage US government agencies to develop more effective strategies and techniques for reducing violence.
Rising global violence is the challenge of our time. Serious conflicts now stretch across swaths of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, and they hold the potential to spread. Meanwhile, tensions are rising in the South China Sea, Myanmar, Ukraine and elsewhere. In most of these circumstances, the influence of international institutions is limited. The options available to US policymakers are lousy.
This rise in violence across the globe is not the challenge expected at this juncture.
For many, the end of the Cold War also ended the risk of war between great powers. The decade that followed saw negotiated peace agreements end lengthy -- and seemingly intractable -- civil wars. Rwanda began rebuilding after a horrible genocide, and wars in the Balkans concluded. More than a decade later, a newly elected President Barack Obama pledged to wind down the new era of conflict inaugurated by the terrorist attacks of 9/11. US troops withdrew from Iraq, Nato began to draw down its forces in Afghanistan, and conversations about how to cut the US defence budget commenced.
Yet violent conflict is now resurging, whether we like it or not. The growing scale and scope of the violence shocks both the heart and the conscience. It also harms American interests. Indeed, these conflicts now threaten every major element of America’s foreign policy, whether it’s economic growth or energy security, human development or human rights, counter-terrorism or illicit trafficking, environmental conservation or global health. It is a challenge US policymakers cannot view separately from their other agendas, since violence is likely to prevent -- or even destroy -- any progress.
The long-term costs of the Syrian conflict are also staggering. The United Nations estimates that 3 million children have dropped out of school since the onset of the crisis, leading Syria’s opposition president, Ahmad Jarba, to fear a generation of uneducated children who know only the language of violence and power.
Those in the national security community, for instance, must recognise more forthrightly the limits of force and invest in the long-term task of building peace. This entails not just the high politics of diplomacy, but also grass roots efforts to build political constituencies for peace. We need stronger and more effective instruments of nonviolent power, such as diplomacy, mediation, conflict resolution, nonviolent civic mobilisation, and public engagement through media and national dialogue, and we need to share them broadly with those in positions to mitigate violent conflicts.
Those in the peace building and conflict-resolution communities should also admit more forthrightly that force may have a role. Some dictators are simply too ruthless to come to the negotiating table if they think they are winning militarily. The National Security Strategy and QDDR can help to promote more effective modes of conflict management by showing how the legitimate use of force can support efforts at political institution-building, civil society development, and public dialogue to improve conditions in places like Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Myanmar -- and how the United States can help to support such efforts.
Finally, Americans must recognise that withdrawing from the world is not a viable option. Turning the nation’s back on resurgent violence will not make it go away. The consequences of violence will harm America too, in myriad ways, despite the natural protection of two oceans. The country’s economy, security and health are intricately intertwined with the rest of the world. Its self-image as a moral nation, not just one that protects its own interests, cannot withstand rigid isolationism. The National Security Strategy and QDDR can articulate, with clarity and vision, why global engagement is essential if America wants to be the strong and prosperous force for good in the world it imagines itself to be.
WP-BLOOMBERG
