Europe

According to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, multiculturalism has failed in Germany. Why? Listen to Andrew Nagorski’s analysis on National Public Radio’s morning show, “The Takeaway.”

“The incongruity of this protest can only be gauged from the available statistics,” states Sehgal.

Sehgal follows this statement with statistics and examples of European imports from China, India and Pakistan.  Pakistan’s exports of 3.32 billion Euros to Europe in 2009 amounted to an increase of 1.26 billion Euros from 2005, constituting a mere 0.27 percent of Europe’s overall imports, and only 1.4 percent of the EU’s textile imports. 

“Pakistan’s exports are all commodity items for budget conscious customers which do not compete with the high end fashion items manufactured in Europe,” explains Sehgal.  With Pakistan’s main export of cotton, commodity comparison between Pakistan and Europe is akin to comparing apples and oranges – in other words, they are not comparable.

Sehgal continues by explaining the recent disasters in Pakistan such as the flood and the ongoing war, both of which have robbed the country of its already limited resources: “we cannot engage the hearts and minds of the populace effectively without the economic means to do so,” Sehgal assesses. 

The main concern from the Pakistani perspective is the issue of market access, which has recently improved.  Sehgal concludes: “The force-multiplier effect and optimism created by even the modest export figure increase sanctioned by EU will make a difference in alleviating the misery/disenchantment of the common man of Pakistan. The goodwill generated for the EU as well as the long-term benefits of stability in the region are tremendous.”

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The event brought together  high-ranking current and former political and military figures from OSCE countries, including Ambassador Wolfgang Friedrich Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference and former Ambassador of Germany to the U.S.; Dr. Celeste A. Wallander, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia of the U.S. Department of Defense; Dr. Joris Voorhoeve, former Minister of Defense of the Netherlands and Member of the Council of State; Dr. Andrzej Olechowski, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland and Member of European Council on Foreign Relations; high-level representatives from OSCE, CSTO and NATO including General Nikolay Bordyuzha, Secretary General, Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO); Dr. Oleksandr Pavlyuk, Head of the External Co-operation of the Office of the OSCE Secretary General; Dr. Goran Svilanović, Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities and former Foreign Minister of FR Yugoslavia; Ambassador Dmitriy Rogozin, Head of the Russian Mission to NATO; representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Ambassador Kairat Abusseitov, Head of the Kazakh Embassy in London; and select prominent security experts from the diplomatic and think tank communities to identify action-oriented recommendations and explore cooperative paths to strengthen Euro-Atlantic Security.

Participants at the meeting argued that there are a lot of real possibilities to activate the OSCE countries in strengthening the Euro-Atlantic Security.

The key findings of the meeting will be circulated to all OSCE governments ahead of the upcoming Lisbon NATO summit in November 2010 and Astana OSCE Summit in December 2010.

Click here to download the full report from this meeting.

EastWest Institute Global Security fellow, Danila Bochkarev, writes an article in The Moscow Times discussing Russia's increasing role of power in the Arctic.

They unanimously adopted  a final document, including an ambitious 64-point action plan that detailed steps for strengthening  non-proliferation norms, reducing nuclear dangers and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons. Perhaps the most ambitious agenda ever produced by an NPT Review Conference, the plan still did not address some pressing challenges, such as the North Korea’s nuclear weapon capabilities and status. The plan also poses tough questions: which of the 64 steps should be given priority and how to undertake them?

To address this issue and help put the plan into action, the EastWest Institute and the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan held a High Level Consultation on “Prioritizing the NPT Action Plan” at the United Nations on September 9.

The event opened with remarks by Francis Finlay, EWI’s Chairman of the Board, and His Excellency Kairat Umarov, Kazakhstan’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Recognizing Kazakhstan’s precedent-setting elimination of nuclear arms in 1991, Finlay further identified Umarov as a “leader in nonproliferation and disarmament efforts.” (click here for remarks by Francis Finlay and Kairat Umarov)

Kairat Umarov and Francis Finlay

Umarov spoke on issues he called vital for the success of the next NPT Review Conference in 2015, three of which became focus points in the discussion, namely: the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) by “influential states”; the creation of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East; and the support of regulated, peaceful use of nuclear power.

The following panel of experts, all of whom were involved in the successfully concluded NPT Rev Con, included:

• His Excellency Libran N. Cabactulan, Ambassador E. and P. and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the Republic of the Philippines to the United Nations (speech)

• Mr. Sergio Duarte, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, United Nations (speech, courtesy of the United Nations)

•  His Excellency Ambassador Tibor Tóth, Executive Secretary, Preparatory Commission of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO)  (speech)

• The Honorable Susan F. Burk, Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Nonproliferation, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, United States Department of State (speech)

• His Excellency Maged A. Abdelaziz, Ambassador E. and P. and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United Nations

The panel members, moderated by Dr. W. Pal Sidhu, EWI’s Vice President of Programs, identified their “top three priorities” among the final document’s 64 point action plan.  All panelists agreed that the 2010 final document was a “historical achievement” and had helped to “reset” the Treaty. However, there was also concern that if progress was not made following the reset it would seriously endanger the future of the Treaty.

Action 5, which calls for the nuclear-weapon States to “commit to accelerate concrete progress on the steps leading to nuclear disarmament,” emerged as the highest priority. Significantly, Action 5 asks states to report progress on specific tasks to a Preparatory Committee at 2014 – showing a commitment not only to accountability and transparency, but to the NPT’s ongoing process.  In fact, prioritizing the continued health of the NPT – which once broken, as an audience member pointed out, would be impossible to reconstitute – became one of the afternoon’s few clear guiding ideas.

Similarly, while ratification of the CTBT by key states and its entry into force was considered a priority, there was also an appreciation that this could not be guaranteed in the near future.

Finally, the proposed 2012 Middle East conference to implement the 1995 NPT Rev Con resolution on establishing a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons was also identified as a high priority. The panelist discussed the significant challenges in this endeavor, particularly the constructive participation of Iran and Israel. The speakers also identified key actions which would be essential to ensure that the conference is held at all. One such was the requirement of the appointment of a high-profile facilitator who did not come from either the permanent member states of the UN Security Council or the middle and who would be equally acceptable to Iran, Israel or the Arab states. There was a consensus that to ensure a successful conference, the states involved will have to address the various challenges either formally or informally at the track 2 level.

As readers of this newspaper will know, the OSCE spans three continents, brings together about 15 per cent of humanity, has 56 members, and has four out of five permanent seats in the UNSC. There is another regional organization that also spans three continents, represents the aspirations of a bigger slice of humanity (about 25 per cent), and has 57 countries as members, but none with a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

The group in question is the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), the world’s only “regional organization” based around a religious attribution. Apart from its 57 members (Muslim majority states), there are a number of states or entities as observers: Bosnia and Hercegovina, Thailand, Russia, the Central African Republic and the Turkish Cypriot government.

The OIC has its own Development Bank, its Islamic UNESCO (ISESCO), the Islamic International Court, the International Islamic News Agency, and a host of subsidiary and affiliated organizations. It does not of course represent in a direct political sense all Muslims, but it does purport to speak on behalf of the “umma” (the community of Muslim believers worldwide).

Osama bin Laden wrote often of the Umma, expressing on occasion the hope that it would rise again to a prominent place in world political affairs, and be recognized again for high achievement in the arts and sciences. I mention that not to credit the source in any way, but to demonstrate that the sentiment about an organized Islamic resurgence is seen as a good mobilizing tool. That aspiration is shared by many leaders in the Islamic world, and it is captured in the Charter of the OIC: “to work for revitalizing Islam’s pioneering role in the world”. This vision, one I share, is the departure point of this analysis.

There are other high ambitions expressed in the OIC charter, including the more familiar idea of a “common market”, albeit an “Islamic Common Market”. Turkey, also an aspirant for EU membership, is actively promoting both parts of this OIC agenda: scientific and technological advance and regional economic integration.

The OIC revised its original 1972 Charter only in 2008. At the time, Indonesia’s President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, declared that as a result of the new charter "the possibility of an Islamic Renaissance lies before us".

The OIC is a leading force in the fight globally against violent extremism.  In 2008, the conference declaration noted: “We continue to strongly condemn all forms of extremism and dogmatism which are incompatible with Islam”. The OIC is also leading a global campaign against rising Islamophobia around the world, a phenomenon documented by independent sources.

To many observers, the OIC is an imperfect organization, to be faulted for its internal divisions, for its hostile attitude to Israel, for what some see as its ingrained anti-semitism, and for its extreme political diversity (from monarchies, dictatorships, and radical regimes to democracies of varying stripe).

That view does not capture the essential dynamism and progressive character of the evolutionary path on which the OIC has been set for number of years. Nor does it speak to the sense of injustice over Palestine that for its part, it carries into many political forums.

A full assessment of the trajectory of this interesting organization would be very useful. One thing is clear. The OIC wants a new partnership with the West, and some countries are beginning to respond to that. The path to regional and wider international power and authority may be long and rocky, but the OIC and its member states have a vision for regional and global economic and scientific development that is definitely beginning to change the world for the better. Let’s work with them.

We have a problem! One of the world’s leading telecoms providers, Huawei of China, sells critical equipment to America’s closest allies in Europe and Asia but many in the United States want to block its expansion there on national security grounds.

The warnings have been raised on several occasions, but most recently by eight U.S. senators in a letter to President Obama, citing Huawei’s past trade with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, its current trade with Iran, and the risk that the Chinese government might plant secret code in some of the equipment that would undermine U.S. national security.

According to the letter: “British, French, Australian, and Indian intelligence agencies have either investigated Huawei or expressed concern that its products could facilitate remote hacking and thereby compromise the integrity of the telecommunications networks in their countries.”
This is of course technically possible. There are precedents where it has been done with equipment from other providers. Two policy problems emerge here: one to laugh about, and one to get very serious about.

First, some fun. If key U.S. allies in Europe, including Britain, already heavily rely on Huawei products and services for basic broadband services, then the clever Chinese armed forces may already be able to neutralize key NATO members. Under one of the biggest telecom procurement contracts ever, signed in 2005, Huawei has been a critical supplier for British Telecom’s high speed broadband. BT has called Huawei a “world class supplier”. Ooops! There goes Britain.

Is the reverse also true? Have the clever American spies planted secret codes in the telecoms and IT equipment sold by leading US suppliers around the world, including to China? We should note that some of China’s modern warships depend on supply of foreign technology, including in some cases foreign communications equipment.

The founder of Huawei, Ren Zhengfei, used to be a member of the Chinese armed forces. This is one source of suspicion of Huawei. Ironically, according to one source, he was denied Communist Party membership because of the Kuomintang political background of his parents. And he was pushed out of the army in the first big wave of demobilizations under Deng Xiaoping in 1982.

Seriously though, and this second point is very important, overcoming the mis-trust of Huawei in the United States is important. To do this, China needs to take certain steps alone and China and the United States need to work together on yet other measures.  For its part, China must do something about the unremitting and massive attacks from its territory on foreign networks and confidential data. Of course, its choices are limited both technically and politically. But according to a well-informed source, the Chinese government does have in place the potential for physical control of all internet gateways for traffic passing into and out of China. It needs to work on strategies for reversing the growing mis-trust of it on account of its global electronic invasion.

Together, the governments of China and the United States need to work with their leading corporations to set up a system for guaranteeing supply chain integrity. This has complex technical and political aspects, and it probably can never be 100 per cent guaranteed. But comprehensive new measures need to be put in place. Huawei has been  honoured as Vodafone’s Supplier of the Year and has been given the Financial Times' Arcelor Mittal Boldness in Business award, among others. But China needs to do more. The anxious Americans could also relax a little. Security interdependence in ICT is here to stay. American politics needs to come to terms with that and work out with China the rules that protect their separate and their mutual interests.

At last! A new, and unlikely contender steps onto the field of play to take on the reigning champions of Europe. In an unlikely move last month, British Prime Minister David Cameron scored a dazzling goal against the Sarkozy-Merkel camp on the issue of Turkey’s membership of the European Union.

Cameron said on 27 July: “I’m here [in Ankara] to make the case for Turkey’s membership in the EU. And to fight for it.” He was joined by Lech Walesa on 19 August. “There is no Europe without Turkey”, the feisty giant-killer of Gdansk told a journalist.

Nobel Peace Prize winner from 2008, Martti Ahtisaari, leads an international commission that has twice reviewed the relationship between Turkey and the EU. The first report in 2004 confirmed the EU’s legal obligation to proceed with Turkish accession. The second noted the “vicious cycle” of negative public debate and stalling and reaffirmed the importance of seeing a “transformed Turkey” as a member of the European Union.

Citing the Association Agreement between the EEC and Turkey in 1963, a Customs Union agreement in 1996, and an EU decision in December 2004 that Turkey could join subject to completion of accession instruments, the Ahtisaari Commission went on to note that Turkey is already “broadly integrated into almost all pan-European Institutions”: the Council of Europe, including the European Court of Human Rights, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

According to a 2005 report by the Foreign Policy Centre (London), titled “Turks in Europe: Why Are We Afraid”, the position of Germany’s Angela Merkel reflects the failure of German policies of integration of its Turkish immigrants. More recently, domestic politics in France have led President Sarkozy to make disquieting statements about immigrant communities in his country. His statements have been accompanied by clear indications of state-sanctioned hostility to, or discrimination against certain classes of immigrants (Muslim women wearing burqas) and would-be immigrants (Roma).

I wonder about David Cameron’s motives in joining the debate so vociferously and, as he said, “very passionately”. But this is a fight that I hope he and his new partner, Walesa, can win.

Chancellor Merkel has advocated that Turkey should scale back its expectations and settle for a “privileged partnership”. She is not supported on this by her coalition partner, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who in visiting Ankara on 28 July, left open the door for continuing negotiations. The Independent Commission labeled advocacy of “privileged partnership” as a “populist excuse”.  There are far higher political stakes in the question of Turkey’s relations with Germany and France, and how these two countries view Turkey’s inclusion in the EU. The prospect that the EU would abandon its legally binding commitment to Turkey because of domestic political positions inspired by xenophobic or anti-immigrant sentiment at home could be, in the words of a Turkish German politician, a “fatal political signal”.

As Turkey becomes more active on the global political stage, it is becoming a lightning rod for the worst nightmares of conservative American analysts, with one from the American Enterprise Institute recently charging at Congressional hearings that Turkey’s foreign policy in the Middle East “favors the most radical elements”. Thankfully, more considered views are in evidence from the German Marshall Fund’s Ian lesser at the same hearings: “if Turkey’s candidacy proves hollow, this could well interrupt or reverse Turkey’s longstanding convergence with the West, further complicating an already strained relationship with the United States.”  But please note, the fight for Turkey in Europe is a fight for dignity and equality as much as it is a fight for realpolitik. If immigrant bashers win, that could become a fatal political signal for the internal security of the “immigration continent”.

On August 31, Poland will commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the Gdansk agreement that gave birth to Solidarity, the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc.

By staging strikes and occupying the Lenin shipyard, Lech Walesa and other activists pressured the communist government into legalizing their movement. Fifteen months later, the regime reversed itself, declaring martial law and outlawing Solidarity--but this only delayed rather than averted the looming crisis of the communist system. In 1989, the collapse of that system in Poland triggered a domino effect throughout the region.

Looking back at those events, we usually focus on the politics of those struggles rather than the economics. But it's worth remembering that the abysmal state of the Polish economy was what fueled the protests from the very beginning. And it's worth considering what that says about the relationship between economics and politics in America today, despite the enormous differences in these two situations.

"Economic Security" is suddenly the hot term of the moment, with its implicit concern about economic insecurity--and the political fallout. This underscores one lesson from pre-1989 Poland that applies to the United States now: if you ignore or paper over underlying economic problems, you will eventually pay a high political price.

After the Soviet Union took over Poland and its neighbors at the end of World War II, the initial Stalinist-era repression gave way to a milder brand of communism. Protests that threatened the system were still brutally suppressed, but a tacit understanding developed: the rulers promised that the basic needs of their peoples would be met, with modest but steady improvements in living standards, so long as the ruled remained politically passive.

The centralized system insured that the gap between West and East kept growing, but the average citizen could get by--just barely. And officially there was no such thing as unemployment. As a popular saying put it, "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work." To maintain those pretences, Poland's 1970s ruler Edward Gierek borrowed heavily from the West. This produced an illusory boom, but the infusion of capital had only boosted consumption or was wasted on nearly bankrupt state industries--or disappeared into the pockets of corrupt officials.

Throughout the 1980s, Poland was a basket case, with $40 billion in foreign debt, an inflation rate of Latin American proportions, and rationing combined with shortages of everything from basic foodstuffs to medicine. A young couple could expect a waiting period of anywhere from twenty to forty years to get an apartment, and hospitals began running out of anesthesia for some routine operations. Little wonder that the young were increasingly ready to risk everything to follow Solidarity leaders like Walesa.

To be sure, the American and most European economies still operate on a far more rational basis than the pre-1989 economies of Central and Eastern Europe. And the good news is that the polnische wirtschaft--German for the Polish economy--is no longer a term of derision precisely because Poland operates according to free market principles now. Last year, Poland was the only EU country to register positive economic growth, and the country is almost unrecognizably different and dramatically more prosperous than its earlier incarnation.

Where there is a connection between the Poland of the old days and the United States now is the heightened awareness that governments must create conditions that give their citizens a sense of economic security. The failure of communist regimes to do so at the most basic level led to their eventual collapse. If Americans begin to feel that their economic system can't provide a degree of security for their much higher living standards, the consequences won't be as spectacular as the upheavals of 1989. But they shouldn't be underestimated either.

Budgets are produced that don't come close to suggesting a course that will curb the country's addiction to massive deficit spending; China keeps underwriting us to an unhealthy degree; and basic decisions on applying common sense solutions are shelved repeatedly because there's always another election coming up. And, of course, politicians from both parties always blame their opponents for the fact that nothing serious is getting done.

The rap on Democrats is that they never encountered a spending proposal they didn't love, and on Republicans that they never saw a tax cut they didn't adore. That may be an oversimplifying, but not by much. In the meantime, yet another presidential commission will study the problem.

The reason the term "economic security" is gaining acceptance is precisely because there's the sense that, with every passing day of inaction, our economy is increasingly insecure. You can pretend that's not the case, as Poland's leaders tried to do for a long time. Or you can start tackling the fundamental problem of how we can start living roughly within our means. Solidarity's 30th birthday party offers a clear indication which is the better course.

Andrew Nagorski is vice president and director of public policy at the EastWest Institute. A former Newsweek foreign correspondent and editor, he is the author of "The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler, and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow That Changed the Course of World War II."