The EastWest Institute is pleased to release its 2018 Annual Report, chronicling the programmatic activities, achievements and new initiatives in the past year and reflecting key geopolitical trends around the world.
The institute remains focused on tackling these evolving issues, as well as on forecasting challenges in other topics and regions.
To access the complete report, please click below:
In a piece for Fortune magazine, published January 22, the authors argue that any reasonable measure, such as a joint Olympic Korean team, should be treated as a viable opportunity toward a meaningful resolution. "Now is the time to build upon this unexpected dynamic productively, thoughtfully, and with all deliberate speed."
The world will watch nearly 100 nations participate in 102 separate events during the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea next month. All eyes will be on The Republic of Korea (ROK) and The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) as athletes from South and North Korea march under one flag. This international sports event could be a constructive early step toward solving the nuclear conundrum on the Korean Peninsula.
This is the not the first time that Seoul and Pyongyang have shared the international stage under one standard. Both countries arrived under one cloth in the 2000 and 2004 Summer Games and again in the 2006 Winter Games as part of the wildly unsuccessful Sunshine Policy, which served as a basis for South Korea’s foreign policy toward its neighbors in the North, between 1998 and 2007.
Click here to read the full commentary.
Photo: "Figure Skating Queen YUNA KIM" (CC BY-ND 2.0) by { QUEEN YUNA }
BY: Wael Abdul-Shafi and Jan Hanrath
The repercussions of climate change and environmental challenges pose enormous risks to Iran and Saudi Arabia alike. While there are differences in geography and climate in both countries, they also have many environmental challenges in common. Problems such as sand and dust storms or diminishing water resources are border-crossing phenomena that no country can deal with alone; therefore, cooperation is key. At this point in time, however, willingness to cooperate is utterly lacking in a region marked by geo-strategic rivalries, ongoing military conflicts and deep-rooted mutual distrust between regional rivals, and between Saudi Arabia and Iran in particular.
CARPO and the EastWest Institute initiated a meeting of experts from Saudi Arabia and Iran as part of their "Iran-Saudi Track 2 Initiative." The participants discussed environmental challenges to reach a better understanding of the political context and to identify opportunities and limits for Iranian-Saudi cooperation in the field of regional environmental policy. Participants agreed that climate change and ecological deterioration pose a major challenge to their countries and the region.
Fully aware that the current political situation makes cooperation very difficult, participants discussed potential avenues of exchange below the level of national governments and proposed initiatives for cooperation on a regional and international level.
The "Iran-Saudi Dialogue" project is funded by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) with resources provided by the German Federal Foreign Office. This latest brief follows three previous ones: Iranian and Saudi Perspectives on the Refugee Crisis, Know Your Enemy — Iranian and Saudi Perspectives on ISIL, and Envisioning the Future: Iranian and Saudi Perspectives on the Post-Oil Economy.
Please click here for the full report.
Photo credit: "Climate Change Pffft." (CC BY-NC 2.0) by Un-Alien-able
EWI Releases Final Joint U.S-Russia Report on Afghan Narcotrafficking
The EastWest Institute (EWI) has released Afghan Narcotrafficking: A Joint Policy Assessment, the sixth and final report from the institute’s Joint U.S.-Russia Working Group on Afghan Narcotrafficking, which provides a comprehensive and updated assessment of the Afghan drug trade and the role that both the United States and Russia might be able to play in countering this shared threat.
The Joint Policy Assessment represents a consensus assessment by both U.S. and Russian technical and policy experts and is intended to serve as a toolkit based on which relevant stakeholders can formulate policy solutions on cooperative bilateral and multilateral measures to reduce the threat of Afghan narcotrafficking. These key stakeholders include policy officials and interlocutors in the United States, Russia, Afghanistan and its neighboring countries, as well as regional and global organizations.
“The scale and intensity of the Afghan narcotrafficking threat has increased in past years, and despite differences in the national priorities and interests of the United States and Russia, this remains an issue of mutual strategic concern for the two countries and the region as a whole,” notes Ambassador Cameron Munter, CEO & President of the EastWest Institute. “It is critical for both countries to manage and mitigate the Afghan narcotrafficking threat and foster cooperation on this issue—even in this prohibitive climate for improved U.S.-Russia relations.”
The final installment under EWI’s Afghan Narcotrafficking series, the Joint Policy Assessment follows five successful consensus-based reports: Afghan Narcotrafficking: A Joint Threat Assessment (2013); Afghan Narcotrafficking: Post-2014 Scenarios (2015); Afghan Narcotrafficking: The State of Afghanistan's Borders (2015); Afghan Narcotrafficking: Finding an Alternative to Alternative Development (2016); and Afghan Narcotrafficking: Illicit Financial Flows (2017).
Established in 2011, the Working Group has also garnered positive feedback and support from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the United States Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), the United States Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation (FSKN), in addition to various multilateral organizations/agencies such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Fully committed to the critical importance of Afghanistan, and the urgent need for continued U.S.-Russia cooperation, the EastWest Institute will establish a new Joint Working Group to assess the threat of terrorism in the war-torn country. Over the course of two years, the Working Group plans to convene in Moscow, Washington, D.C., Brussels and Astana and produce a joint threat assessment, which will be disseminated to key policy officials and interlocutors.
Please click here for the full report.
Click here for the executive summary.
Tokyo knows that any acceleration of its moves in the South China Sea will likely be reciprocated by Beijing’s tightening of the screws in the East China Sea, writes EWI Senior Fellow J. Berkshire Miller in the National Interest.
Sino-Japanese relations have long been marred by a maritime and territorial row in the East China Sea as well as a historical dispute over Japan's wartime memory, which has prevented sustainable rapprochement. Further complicating the situation, bilateral ties are now increasingly strained by Japan’s growing presence in the South China Sea, where overlapping territorial and maritime disputes have pitted China against several Southeast Asian neighbors.
At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s most important defense and security summit, Japanese defense minister Tomomi Inada delivered pointed criticisms of China, deploring its attempts to “upend the rules-based order” and “alter the status quo based on assertions incompatible with existing international norms.” While never directly referring to China, Inada’s remarks were some of the most vivid official expressions in recent years of Japan’s concerns regarding China’s foreign policy. The following day, Beijing issued a rebuttal, expressing its “strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition” to what it deemed “irresponsible remarks.”
The JS Izumo, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force’s largest warship, is currently sailing through the South China Sea for three months, making port calls to Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. The cross-ocean trek comes just as the warship is preparing to take part in a multilateral naval exercise in the Indian Ocean in July, along with India and the United States. Izumo’s itinerary is meant to serve as a sign of Japan’s commitment to its Southeast Asian partners and is a clear response to what it perceives as China’s overbearing approach to the South China Sea. Notably, the trip also comes on the heels of Tokyo’s November 2016 announcement of the so-called Vientiane Vision, which lays out Japan’s plans for increased defense cooperation with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Read the full article here.
On June 12, EWI President and CEO Cameron Munter talked to Voice of America’s International Edition to discuss the role of the U.S. on the world stage under President Donald Trump.
Asked about his take on other foreign leaders pursuing a more globalist foreign policy in the wake of Trump’s ‘America First’ vision, Munter replied that "There are two ways to look at this. One way is you can’t rely on the United States implies we can’t trust the United States. That’s very negative and very harsh way of looking at it. There’s another interpretation of [what Merkel said] that I think is a little less apocalyptic…and that’s that Europe must pull its weight in defense…[Europe] can’t just be an economic superpower and not be a military and political security superpower."
Commenting on Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords, Munter stated that although the decision shows clarity within the Administration’s policy objectives, it does constitute "a huge symbolic blow that the world’s biggest country, which has been a leader in this area, is now the outlier. It is a symbolic blow to the idea of solidarity. It is a symbolic blow to the image of the United States as a leader."
Munter went on to say that "if we are to ignore the way in which multilateral institutions have worked, we will be leaving a world that we’ve used very much to our advantage in my opinion for the past 70 years."
Listen to his discussion below, beginning around the 6:20 minute mark.
On December 7, the EastWest Institute (EWI) conducted a webinar on "International Organizations and Conflict Resolution in the Time of COVID-19." The webinar featured distinguished speakers Hon. Izumi Nakamitsu, under-secretary-general and high representative for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations, and Ambassador Tuula Yrjölä, officer-in-charge/deputy head of the Secretariat and director of the Conflict Prevention Centre.
The webinar was moderated by Bruce McConnell, EWI president and CEO Discussants included Dr. Mark Meirowitz, professor of humanities at SUNY Maritime College in New York and EWI senior fellow, and Nvard Chalikyan, consultant for EWI’s Russia and the United States program.
The panelists discussed how COVID-19 impacts the operations of conflict resolution organizations, particularly in their ability to execute their missions within the constraints of a digital work environment.
Hon. Izumi Nakamitsu said that COVID-19 is having a devastating effect on all aspects of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, especially on security and development, as it has accelerated many existing security threats. As states have increased their military spending, with emerging weapon technologies coming into play, this has added to the intensity of armed conflicts. Pandemic-related processes have also exacerbated the existing strain on the global disarmament and arms control regime. All these are challenges that the UN and other international organizations are struggling to deal with.
Looking ahead, Nakamitsu said that the coming decade will be crucial to the international community, noting that to achieve better outcomes, there must be renewed ambition, leadership and collective efforts that people at the centre of global responses. "Such times of pressing emergency and widespread turmoil represent a crucial opportunity to propose bolder approaches to conflict prevention," she noted.
Nakamitsu also stressed the importance of concerted multilateral efforts in mobilizing government and private sector actors around development and implementation of norms of behavior, citing the example of EWI’s Global Cooperation in Cyberspace program.
Ambassador Tuula Yrjölä said that COVID-19 has had an unprecedented effect on multilateralism and conflict resolution efforts in general, and in particular, on the security operations of the OSCE in the regions they cover—Ukraine, Transnistria, Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
While the OSCE has adapted its work to the current circumstances by moving its main activities online, many functions of the organization have been hampered. At the same time, the pandemic has accelerated the need to find technological tools to support conflict resolution mechanisms. Despite the UN call for a global ceasefire, the pandemic has given rise to political and military threat perceptions in the OSCE and to the revival of frozen conflicts, exemplified in the recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
"The impact [of the pandemic] could exacerbate further by an economic crisis that can affect all states in the region as well as globally," concluded Yrjölä, stressing the need for more resources to be allocated to conflict resolution organizations.
Discussant Nvard Chalikyan presented recent research by the EastWest Institute on the impact COVID-19 has had on global security and the work of Track 2 organizations. The pandemic has resulted in the emergence of new conflicts and the resergence of old security threats, including a rise in terrorism and radicalization, escalation of the nuclear arms race, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and a lack of implementation of arms control regimes, among others. This has generated a greater need for the work of international organizations involved in Track 2 conflict resolution. "Speaking in economic terms, the demand for conflict resolution is higher than the supply, so we need to think of ways to increase the supply," she noted.
Chalikyan also reflected on the case of the recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh—when Azerbaijan, supported by Turkey, seized a majority of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic by force, breaching international law. Despite well-documented attacks on the civilian population and the use of prohibited weapons, there was no interference by the international community. The case raises questions about the capacity of international conflict resolution organizations to prevent or stop wars, especially during a pandemic.
Dr. Mark Meirowitz spoke about the lessons learned from the pandemic. He noted that the world is in conflict because of the competition between the great powers, which continue to play a crucial role in various conflicts without interference or accountability from multilateral organizations, such as the UN.
He also raised whether after the pandemic, the world of international relations will go back to “business as usual” or will be obliged to come up with new processes. "Maybe the UN system is not amenable to the world as we see it today; maybe there needs to be a reset of the UN and how it functions," he noted.
Meirowitz believes that the Biden administration will be helpful in overcoming the crisis of multilateralism, as it will be less critical of the UN and international organizations. While during the pandemic the states have been looking inward, he thinks the world will be needing more multilateral engagement and Track 2 activities.
During the Q&A session, several webinar participants asked why the COVID-19 pandemic has had a more dividing effect, rather than bringing the international community together. Other participants posed the question as to whether Track 2 diplomacy would ever be conducted as it was before the COVID pandemic.
Commenting on this, Ambassador Yrjölä said that it is largely up to the participating states to recognize the value of multilateralism and get out of this crisis. She also thinks that international organizations working on conflict resolution will most likely have more blended work formats going forward. Nakamitsu said that the pandemic has exacerbated these problems and challenges, and it has created a greater need for the revival of multilateralism.
Click here to watch the full webinar on YouTube.
