The Palestinian leadership does not believe that an Israeli offer to limit settlement construction for ten months is sufficient for peace talks to restart, a PNA spokesman said on Wednesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced earlier on Wednesday that construction would be limited in the occupied West Bank, but not in East Jerusalem. He also said construction would resume in the future.

"Israel's government has made an important step toward peace today," Netanyahu said in a televised address. "Let us make peace together." The Israeli offer was welcomed by the White House.

However, the Palestinians say the offer does not go far enough.

"Any return to negotiations must be on the basis of a complete settlement freeze, and in Jerusalem foremost," Palestinian National Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rdineh said.

The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. Some half a million Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, both of which have been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

Source: RIA Novosti

By Jos Boonstra

Central Asia faces a broad range of security challenges1. Due to the region’s position at the crossroads between Russia, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and the Caspian Sea it is confronted with a range of trans-national issues such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, organised crime and terrorism. Central Asia also encounters specific regional threats including scarcity of water resources for generating power and irrigation purposes, which is currently causing tension. On a national level the five Central Asian republics face the threat of instability due to bad governance and the harsh impact of the economic crisis.

Although the Central Asian republics established themselves as independent states with reasonably strong security forces and multi-vector foreign policies, they are largely dependent on influential external actors’ cooperation on security issues. Home-grown Central Asia security cooperation mechanisms are nonexistent.

NATO includes the Central Asian republics in its Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme; Russia leads the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) whose membership consists of several former Soviet republics; China and Russia work with Central Asian republics through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Clearly Russia is the main security actor in the region. It became clear in August 2008 that Russia is willing and able to act with military means in its ‘near abroad’ for better or worse. This notion was strengthened in August 2009 when President Medvedev amended the Defence Law to create the possibility of deploying Russian forces abroad to defend Russian interests. In the case of conflict in Central Asia, it is highly unlikely that China, the EU and the US would act, even though the latter two have several military bases in the area focusing on the war effort in Afghanistan.

The European Union does however regard itself as a security actor and takes a keen interest in working with Central Asian states on the basis of joint security interests. In June 2007 when the EU presented the ‘European Union and Central Asia: Strategy for a New Partnership’ document,2 Brussels argued that security and stability are its main strategic interests.

Thus much of the activity from political dialogue to assistance programmes is part of the Strategy’s security objective. One security aspect that is key to both national security and
international and regional security cooperation is the concept of Security Sector Reform (SSR), which aims to support a locally driven reform effort of all national security-related
agencies and oversight mechanisms. Although the EU policy documents concerning Central Asia do not refer to SSR, this paper will argue that some EU activities can be directly related
to the holistic concept of SSR and others might contribute indirectly to reform of the security sector.

This EUCAM policy brief assesses in what aspects of Security Sector Reform the EU is engaged in with Central Asia and in what context these possible activities should be viewed. The main focus will be on direct engagement on security topics such as the EU Border Management project BOMCA.

However, indirect activities such as education programmes that might be beneficial to security and stability in Central Asia will not be ignored. After an exposé on EU security interests in Central Asia, in the second paragraph attention is devoted to national and regional threats to the security of Central Asian republics and engagement of the EU. The paper concludes with a few recommendations for EU institutions and member states that could help to strengthen EU–Central Asia security cooperation including aspects of Security Sector Reform.

1. The EU and Security in Central Asia

The 2007 EU–Central Asia Strategy argues that the EU has an interest in security, stability, human rights and rule of law in Central Asia because of trans-regional challenges; EU
enlargement and the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) that brought Europe and Central Asia closer; and the region’s substantial energy resources that can help to build EU energy
security.3 Of the seven specific priorities outlined, number six is the most tangible direct security item: ‘combating common threats and challenges’. Here the EU offers to further work with Central Asia on border management and customs in order to counter crime and the challenge of migration flows through and from the region. The Strategy called for a series
of high-level visits of Central Asian leaders to Europe and visa versa. In September 2008 the French EU Presidency organised a Minister of Foreign Affairs level security Forum that focused on Afghanistan, terrorist threats and trafficking, and the Swedish Presidency followed up on this event one year later with a Ministerial Conference discussing regional security issues, water, energy and the impact of the economic crisis. Meanwhile, Solana’s Special Representative Pierre Morel travels through the region with an obvious energy and security portfolio and the EU holds regular Human Rights Dialogues with all Central Asian republics.

Through the European Commission, a Regional Assistance Strategy (2007–2013)4 and a more detailed Indicative Programme (2007–2011)5 were drafted to guide technical assistance. One third of the 750 million Euro assistance until 2013 is earmarked for regional cooperation programmes; two thirds is for bilateral programmes. The funding is thinly spread over the wide range of priorities outlined in the political Strategy and many touch on security-related issues. Only the BOMCA border management and CADAP anti-drugs trafficking programme are directly security related while several bilateral programmes that focus on the judiciary, parliament or ministries should have a positive impact on security and stability in the EU’s philosophy. In that sense the regional EU Rule of Law Initiative that is coordinated by Germany and France might also have a positive bearing on Central Asian regional cooperation and security through reform of the rule of law. Still, only a little of the EU’s technical assistance through the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) or the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) – the two main EU assistance instruments that apply to Central Asia – can be regarded as Security Sector Reform assistance. However, some initiatives, such as a project on human rights awareness in the Kyrgyz police forces or assistance to judicial reform in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are part and parcel of SSR,6 although maybe not presented directly in this way by Brussels. The EU Instrument for Stability (IfS) that would be suitable for SSR work until now barely applies to Central Asia.

Although the EU does not have a SSR strategy for Central Asia, the EU in general has become one of the foremost international donors and promoters of SSR through Commission funding and long-term projects, and EU Council driven European Security and Defence (ESDP) missions in Afghanistan, Africa, the Balkans, South Caucasus and the Middle East. The main focus of EU SSR is on police forces, border guards and the judiciary, generally excluding reform of the military. Division of labour and coordination between the Commission and Council is however weak and ill-defined – sometimes even leading to competition of competences in implementing programmes – which is partly the result of the fact that both EU entities have their own SSR Concept.7 The EU sees SSR as a tool that can help reach broad objectives of the Union’s external and security policies such as poverty reduction and strengthening human rights, democracy, good governance and rule of law. Finally, Brussels devotes attention to SSR in fragile states as outlined in the 2003 EU Security Strategy.8

Whereas the Commission is involved in assistance that is SSR or can be linked to reform of the security sector in Central Asia, and is expanding its presence on the ground through
Commission delegations in Astana, Bishkek and Dushanbe, a cooperation office in Almaty and Europe Houses in Ashgabat and Tashkent, the Council is only represented through Special Representative Pierre Morel with few staff actually present in the region. With no ESDP missions active in a region beset by a range of security challenges, it would make sense for the Special Representative to discuss possible EU–Central Asia cooperation on SSR in his regular meetings with Central Asian political elites. Security structures in Central Asia are characterised by a lack of training and resources (the Armed Forces in particular), corruption (for example in the police forces) and absence of oversight mechanisms besides
presidential power (internal security forces and intelligence come to mind). If the EU is serious about promoting stability and security in the region, and sees political dialogue as the
basis of engagement, the Special Representative should at least test the waters in all five countries. It is unlikely that he would receive any interest from Turkmen and Uzbek
authorities but he might find an opening for cooperation in the somewhat more liberal regimes of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

A final aspect of EU engagement in SSR in Central Asia can be related to the OSCE and NATO due to the large overlap of membership and both regional security organisations’
activities in Central Asia. Cooperation between the EU and NATO is limited in Central Asia and non-existent when it comes to SSR. All five countries are members of NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP), but only Kazakhstan is actively engaged in SSR activities through the Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) that it agreed with NATO and which incorporates aspects of security-related reform of armed forces and oversight mechanisms. Kazakhstan also participates in the PAP-DIB (Partnership Action Plan – Defence Institution Building) initiative in which NATO liaises with partners from Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Kazakhstan on good governance of the defence sector.

NATO holds consultations with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan on defence and security sector reform, but is not directly involved through substantial cooperation or assistance programming.

NATO’s interest in Central Asia largely equals that of the EU – partnership, stability and security – but its activities are mostly constrained to some military cooperation and, most
importantly, political dialogue and diplomatic exchanges with a view to increase access to Afghanistan for NATO’s ISAF mission.

The OSCE is an interesting partner for the EU in Central Asia in terms of SSR activities. The OSCE has a presence in all five countries and has broad experience of ‘doing’ SSR, both
through the politico-military and human dimensions. Over 70 per cent of the OSCE budget is funded by EU member states, most of them in full support of OSCE field missions,
although the OSCE centres in Central Asia only have small budgets. One way for the EU to step up support for SSR in Central Asia would be to provide so-called ‘extra budgetary
support’ to projects that can be implemented by the OSCE; this would be advantageous since Central Asian countries themselves are members of the OSCE and thus have a stake
in the defining and implementation of SSR activities. Although some Central Asian countries, particularly Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, would be unwilling to have the OSCE work on
democratisation of the security sector, the other three states are more open to this. But there are also less sensitive SSR related issues the OSCE works on in Central Asia, such as
police and border guard training. And these are areas where the EU and OSCE need to carefully coordinate and cooperate since the EU also tends to focus on these areas in support
of SSR. In that sense close cooperation is expected between the EU BOMCA project and the newly opened Border Management Staff Office in Dushanbe. Another option for cooperation could be education through the OSCE Academy in Bishkek and several education initiatives that the EU is undertaking in the region. Lastly, the Kazakh 2010 OSCE Chairmanship is another opportunity for the EU and OSCE to step up engagement with Central Asia, including cooperation on reforming the security sector.

2. Security threats and EU activity

Central Asia is confronted by trans-national, regional and national security threats. The main trans-national threat derives from Afghanistan in the form of drug trafficking and the risk of conflict spilling over as Taliban factions try to get a foothold in Central Asia.9 In Afghanistan the EU is increasingly active in support of SSR. The main programmes consist of an ESDP police mission (EUPOL) and Commission involvement in justice reform. Europe’s SSR support is largely still provided by individual member states – especially those that
contribute to the ISAF mission – and the EU’s programmes are still in need of more funding and qualified personnel.

The main link between EU SSR support to Afghanistan and Central Asia is border control, for instance through the Border Management Badakhshan (BOMBAF) that was largely EU
funded, implemented by UNDP and focused on building three border crossing points on the Tajik-Afghan border while also training Afghan border guards and providing equipment.

Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan share a border with Afghanistan that is over 2000 kilometres long. In Central Asia the Commission has supported the Border Management
programme BOMCA10 and a Drug Action Programme (CADAP) since 2003. These substantial Commission funded and UNDP-implemented programmes are heralded as EU flagship projects in the region. BOMCA has focused on training Central Asian border guards, providing technical equipment and facilitating regional cooperation on border management. The main objective is to promote integrated border management that would help all agencies involved (border guards, customs services, police etc.) to work closely together but also enhance contacts between these agencies among the Central Asian countries. Regardless of its success, the challenges in border control in Central Asia and the borders with Afghanistan remain enormous. The EU would do well to step up BOMCA work through increased funding, bringing in more partners and, in a broader sense, using the BOMCA experience in other parts of the security sector such as police or disaster relief.

The most substantial regional threat facing Central Asia derives from tensions over water management. Energy-rich Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan lack sufficient water resources for irrigation of crops, while mountainous and water-rich Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan lack sufficient fossil fuel resources. Over the past few years tensions have risen between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in particular. The former plans to construct an enormous dam in the Vakhsh River which would enable the Tajiks to generate the electricity they badly need while being able to control water flows to Uzbekistan and other countries in the region. Uzbekistan fiercely resists Tajik water projects, fearing that it would not have enough water to irrigate its extensive cotton fields.

Uzbekistan has already on a few occasions restricted the flow of gas to Tajikistan. Regional cooperation between the Central Asian countries has not yielded substantial results, and international organisations and important powers such as Russia, the EU and the US have been reluctant to get involved in regional disputes over water resources. With climate change having a further negative effect on available water resources, the risk of regional conflict rises, especially between Uzbekistan and its water-rich though devastatingly poor Tajik and Kyrgyz neighbours. The EU is involved in water management issues through an Initiative on Environment and Water which is aimed at donor coordination. A large water governance project is one of the key projects the EU is implementing, although unfortunately Uzbekistan is not included. Although maybe not directly SSR related, this EU engagement in good governance on topics that have a clear security bearing is crucial to the implementation of the security-oriented Strategy for the region.

Lastly, the countries of the region deal with internal instability to different extents. At first sight all five regimes seem to have a strong grip on power. However, strong presidential regimes or authoritarianism are no guarantee for staying in power as became clear in Kyrgyzstan in 2005 when President Akayev was ousted by frustrated elites in favour of current President Bakiyev. Also it is unclear whether power transitions as a result of a leader’s sudden death will always run as smoothly as in Turkmenistan following Niazov’s death in December 2006. Disloyal political and business elites, the poor and disillusioned populations – an effect that might be increased by the economic crisis – as well as radical Islamic groups can all threaten the status quo in Central Asian republics.

These factors provide reason enough for Central Asian leaders to have strong intelligence services that can detect potential threats in time, or internal security forces that can quell unrest if necessary. An extreme example of when such services were deployed was the situation that arose in the Uzbek city of Andjion in 2004, where hundreds of protesters where massacred. In this sense SSR, if understood by Central Asian leaders as contributing to democratic reform of security structures, is likely to be considered a threat to the regime.

Although all five Central Asian states have strong presidential regimes there are substantial differences between the leaderships, the conditions they work in, the level of freedom
and the possibilities for reform. In Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan there might be interest in EU-supported small scale projects on SSR that touch on governance and even democratisation aspects. Large overhaul projects are unlikely but smaller civil society driven projects, with support through EIDHR, the Non State Actors / Local Authorities in
Development programme and especially through EU national government funding, should be taken up and supported.

In Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan prospects are dim for EU involvement in SSR and governance support. Nonetheless, the EU should make an effort to closely liaise with NATO, which upholds reasonably positive diplomatic and military contacts with these countries. Cooperation with the OSCE Project Coordinator in Tashkent and the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat could also yield success, for instance in the form of jointly organising modest public discussion sessions.

Radical Islam is characterised by most Central Asian governments as internal security threat number one. Until now the EU has been wary of initiating EU–Central Asia exchanges of experience in working on and with moderate Islamic groups on society- related issues, including security.

In the EU–Central Asia Strategy the final priority outlined is ‘Building Bridges: inter-cultural dialogue’.11 In its June 2008 and summer 2009 reports the Council and Commission did
not even bother to address this point.12 Although not directly related to SSR, both moderate and radical Islam are societal forces to be reckoned with; the former to build a dialogue with, the latter, if violent, to address through security services. The EU should outline what it plans to do regarding this Strategy priority, with a view to helping to build stability and enhance mutual security.

3. Recommendations for the EU institutions and member states

A strong EU involvement including a unified vision in support of Security Sector Reform in Central Asia is unlikely in the foreseeable future. The political landscape in Central Asia is largely not receptive to key aspects of SSR such as democratic control of armed forces and other state security institutions through the power ministries, the parliament and civil society. Nonetheless the EU is active in aspects of SSR and there is probably room for growth of this modest role.

Here are a few options EU institutions and member states might consider:

• Although the EU Strategy’s underlying theme is based on security, it would be worthwhile to look into ways of feeding SSR aspects into the political dialogue between the EU and Central Asian republics. Firstly, the Special Representative Pierre Morel and his team of advisors could investigate in meetings with Central Asian leaders if there are aspects of SSR that the republics might take an interest in. EU Council advisors could for instance be helpful in Central Asia on issues such as legal advice to help reform security structures.
  

•  The EU does not implement significant SSR programmes in Central Asian states, with BOMCA largely being coordinated by UNDP. Increased political and financial support is feasible however, for instance through the OSCE. Supporting the OSCE field offices with extrabudgetary funds for specific projects would be an ideal way for the EU to get involved in SSR through a joint effort of OSCE member states and by using OSCE ‘eyes and ears’ on the ground.
  

• The EU will need to take a broad approach to security concerns that go beyond narrowly-defined regions such as Central Asia and conflict areas such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. It will be imperative for Brussels and its EU programmes on the ground to liaise closely with each other and even integrate activities that take place in Central Asia and Afghanistan. This principally applies to the BOMCA and CADAP programmes that need to further expand on ‘cross-border’ international border management assistance programmes between Afghanistan and the Central Asian states.
  

• In most assessments BOMCA receives a positive review. The fact that all five Central Asian countries participate in this regional endeavour is already an important achievement. It would be worthwhile to use the experience to try and transfer the BOMCA model to other parts of the security sector in Central Asia. The EU could consider applying the integrated (border management) approach to (less politically sensitive) sectors such as emergency response which also demands the involvement of a host of security services and ministries that need to work closely together in times of need.
  

• In Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan there might be interest in EU supported projects on SSR. The EU and its member states could increasingly look into possibilities of supporting SSR projects implemented by local and international civil society organisations, also in cooperation with the governments of the three countries.

• In Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan prospects are largely absent for a substantial EU involvement in SSR that goes beyond current work in BOMCA. Nonetheless, the EU should make an effort to closely liaise with NATO and the OSCE, also in practical terms through small awareness-raising exercises.

• With regard to Islam and society, the EU should pick up on EU Strategy priority number seven ‘Building Bridges: inter-cultural dialogue’, making clear what it plans to undertake in terms of helping to build stability and enhance mutual security.

Conclusion

While the EU will not be an influential player in security issues nor in assistance to SSR as it has been in the Western Balkans, or currently in Congo and Georgia, there is room for a more concerted and substantial role. In the security domain it will be crucial for the EU to link up efforts and partners in Afghanistan to those in Central Asia. The political dialogue
with Central Asian republics that was intensified as a result of the appearance of the 2007 EU Strategy for the region should now bear fruit in that sense. These increased contacts
and engagement could also have a positive impact on water management tensions in the region, especially between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

As far as SSR goes, the EU has little room to fund or work on genuine SSR projects with a strong good governance focus. Nonetheless, Brussels and member states should use the opportunities that are available; especially since SSR is the ideal link between the human rights, democracy, good governance and rule of law priority it has set out to pursue and the security concerns that underpin EU engagement with Central Asia.


Jos Boonstra is senior researcher at FRIDE, a European think tank based in Madrid. He also serves as Co-chair of the EUCAM Expert Working Group. Before 2007 Boonstra worked
as a Programme Manager and Head of Research at the Centre for European Security Studies (CESS) in the Netherlands. He holds two MA degrees from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands; Contemporary History (1997) and International Relations (2000).

This article was published by FRIDE The original title of this paper was "The EU Strategy for Central Asia says ‘security’. Does this include Security Sector Reform?"

Notes:

1 A similar version of this text will also appear in a Centre for European Security Studies (CESS) Harmonie Paper, www.cess.org

2 The EU and Central Asia: Strategy for a New Partnership (June 2007), http://www.consilium. europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/librairie/PDF/EU_CtrlAsia_EN-RU.pdf

3 Ibidem.

4 European Community Regional Strategy Paper for Assistance to Central Asia for the period 2007–2013, http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/central_asia/rsp/07_13_en.pdf

5 Central Asia Indicative Programme (2007–2010), http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/central_asia/rsp/nip_07_10_en.pdf

6 Presentation by Joaquin Tasso Vilallonga, SSR Focal Point, Crisis Response and Peace Building Unit, RELEX, European Commission during the conference: SSR in Central Asia: ‘Identifying national approaches, international involvement and prospects for cooperation’, 24–25 September 2009, Almaty, Kazakhstan.

7 Maria Derks and Sylvie More, ‘The European Union and Internal Challenges for Effectively Supporting Security Sector Reform’, Clingendael Conflict Research Unit, June 2009, v.

8 ‘A Secure Europe in a Better World. European Security Strategy’, Brussels, 12 December 2003, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf

9 For more information about the EU security role in Afghanistan and Central Asia see: Nicolás de Pedro and Gabriel Reyes, ‘Central Asia and the European Union Strategy for Afghanistan’, EUCAM Policy Brief. Soon available at www.eucentralasia.eu

10 For more information about BOMCA see: George Gavrilis, ‘BOMCA and beyond. The Geography of Euroepan Border Management Assistance in Central Asia’, EUCAM Policy Brief. Soon available at www.eucentralasia.eu

11 The EU and Central Asia: Strategy for a New Partnership (June 2007), http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/librairie/PDF/EU_CtrlAsia_EN-RU.pdf, 26.

12 Joint Progress Report by the Council and the European Commission to the European Council on the Implementation of the EU Central Asia Strategy, 2008, http://delkaz.ec.europa.eu/joomla/images/Strategy/joint%20progress%20report%20on%20eu%20ca%20strategy.pdf and the EU Strategy Implementation, 2009, http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/central_asia/docs/factsheet_strategy_implementation_en.pdf

The sanctions set forth by the United Nations Security Council following North Korea’s nuclear test on May 25 have “taken a bite out of North Korea,” which is why Pyongyang wants to return to the Six-Party Talks, Dr. Victor Cha said in a recent interview with the U.S. Asia Pacific Council’s Washington Report. Dr. Cha, currently senior advisor and Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and a professor at Georgetown University, served as U.S. deputy head of delegation to the Six-Party Talks during the Bush administration. (Click here to download the November 2009 issue of Washington Report and the full interview with Dr. Cha.)

“A lot of diplomatic theater frequently takes place. But often there are very simple answers that explain North Korean behavior,” Cha said. “First, North Korea pursues nuclear weapons development because it desires to be a nuclear weapons state. And second, the reason why Pyongyang wants to return to the to the Six-Party Talks – after pushing off the Obama administration from the very beginning of its term – is because the sanctions that were implemented following its nuclear test are starting to hurt.”

In his interview with Washington Report, Cha delved into a number of issues relevant to the North Korean problem, including:

Purpose of sanctions:

Some analysts have argued that economic sanctions in and of themselves will not cause North Korea to denuclearize. Cha did not disagree, but he pointed out that the sanctions serve two important purposes. First, they punish North Korea for its behavior, and second, they counter North Korea’s proliferation efforts. And the real threat that North Korea poses to U.S. core security interests, Cha said, is the danger of proliferation, whether it be proliferation of scientists, fissile material, or weapons design.

“We know how to deter North Korea from invading the South and we know how to punish Pyongyang with U.N. sanctions when it conducts missile tests and nuclear tests. But we still are not very good at deterring North Korea from proliferation or from testing missiles,” Cha said. He proposed that this problem “has to be one of the priorities for the Obama administration.”

The proliferation threat is real, Cha said, as was evidenced by North Korea’s sales of nuclear technology to Syria. Regardless of the outcome of current diplomatic initiatives, he said, “it is important to continue counter-proliferation sanctions.”

Importance of negotiations:

“There needs to be some sort of negotiations to get at the denuclearization aspect, and that requires some incentives,” Cha said. He noted that, going back to the Clinton and Bush administrations and including the Obama White House, Washington has offered basically the same bargain to Pyongyang: “Give up your nuclear weapons and you potentially will get a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War, normalization of relations with the United States and Japan, energy assistance, economic assistance, and a place at the table as a normal member of the international community.”

Role of the North Korean military:

Cha noted that the military has become more significant under Kim Jong-Il as a direct result of his “military first” policy. But he took a slightly different view from other experts who regard the military as an important political force now and into the future. “The military will play an important role [in a post-Kim era],” Cha said, “but it will be important in the sense that [it] will serve whatever political actor is in control.”

‘Thaw’ in North-South relations:

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak has not necessarily embraced Pyongyang’s recent “charm offensive” with “wide-eyed optimism,” according to Cha. Rather, President Lee’s “grand bargain” sets forth very clear quid pro quos for progress in North-South economic relations. “That is a position with which the United States is very comfortable,” Cha said.

Source: East-West Center

This report is based on the findings of an October 16, 2009 conference in Washington, D.C. on “Countering Democratic Regression in a Newly Divided Europe/Eurasia.” The conference was held at Johns Hopkins University SAIS and co-organized by the FPRI Project on Democratic Transitions and the S. Richard Hirsch Chair in European Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS.


Contrary to the early euphoria and very real progress towards democratization during the 1990s in most of postcommunist Europe and Eurasia, democracy is now on the defensive throughout much of the region. The geographic area comprising the twenty-nine countries that emerged from Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe and the formerly communist Balkan countries is significantly less democratic, less secure, and less aligned with the West than it was at the end of the 1990s or at the start of the 2000s.

This regression should be of serious concern to both the United States (U.S.) and to the twenty-seven European Union (EU) member states. These anti-democratic trends can and should be reversed, drawing upon the lessons of the last twenty years of postcommunist transition experience. To restore lost democratic momentum, however, Washington and its allies must give higher priority to the postcommunist countries, both in terms of high-level attention and in the quantity and quality of resources devoted to supporting democracy in the region. High-level U.S. visits to the post-communist countries by President Barack Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton around the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall indicated a policy opening and good will, but need to be followed up by a concerted long-term policy response.

Why does the postcommunist region merit a higher priority–despite the admittedly compelling demands posed by crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? First, for its own security, the United States cannot afford to ignore democratic backsliding in key parts of Europe. Outbursts of European instability over the past century have repeatedly proven their potential to draw the United States into armed conflict or other very costly forms of engagement. European democracy and unity are the best assurance against such negative consequences. Secondly, the United States needs a strong, stable, united and friendly Europe as a partner in managing the extraordinary global challenges that face both continents — including the ideological warfare currently being waged against Western values. Conversely, deterioration of democracy in Eastern Europe could severely damage Europe’s stability, its alignment with the U.S. and its ability to act as an effective partner on the global stage.

It would therefore be a serious mistake to ignore the recent democratic regression in Russia and several other former Soviet republics. Nor the should the stagnation and even backsliding since 2005 in countries like Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Bosnia be dismissed as issues of lower-order strategic import. Their fate is a core issue facing European security, stability and unity today — and the United States has a strong interest in the outcome.

Building on past successes, the United States should renew its commitment and strengthen its support of democracy throughout the post-communist space. This is particularly crucial, however, in the fragile “in-between” countries that are currently the object of a tug-of-war between Russia on the one hand, and the U.S. and EU on the other. To be effective in supporting postcommunist democratization, Washington and Brussels must work together more closely and devote substantially increased attention and resources to the region. Washington must also revamp its pro-democracy rhetoric and some of its programmatic and tactical approaches. This renewed “Postcommunist Democracy Phase II” effort should be guided by the following five changes of strategy:

Increase democracy support levels with a long-term perspective

The United States has tended to view democratization as a short-term process that starts with a break-through to free and fair elections and ends when such elections are repeated and lead to alternation of governments. Yet twenty years of postcommunist experience shows that this perspective is short-sighted and that democratization requires a long-term approach.

Change the rhetoric of U.S. support for democracy

Support for democracy should focus on promoting universal values, such as the rule of law, pluralism, responsive government, citizen participation, free media, robust civil society, truly fair electoral competition, and equal opportunity. We must avoid the appearance of advocating regime change or adoption of a U.S.-based model of governance.

Partner more closely with the European Union in support of democracy

U.S. support for democratization has been most effective when conducted in tandem with the European democracies. When the U.S. and the EU are visibly working together on the same side, the lure and the pressure are difficult to resist.

Support institutions and processes, not leaders

Perhaps the greatest mistake of U.S. democracy assistance in the postcommunist region after 1989 has been to support individual “democrats” rather than the processes and institutions that are essential to building democracy over the long run. The United States needs to renew and refocus its democracy assistance in areas such as rule of law, independent media, government accountability, effective regulation, social welfare, party financing, anti-corruption and other measures to build stable institutions over the long term that do not rely on any individual leader.

Redesign assistance programs in collaboration with local activists

After twenty years of postcommunist democratization, several Central European countries have developed a solid core of democracy activists and civil society groups with whom we can work to help spread democratization further to the East. Assistance programs should be redesigned in close consultation with local civic leaders, not imposed according to U.S. agendas or regional “templates.”

Countering Democratic Regression in Europe and Eurasia
Introduction

This report is based on the findings of an October 16, 2009 conference in Washington, D.C. on “Countering Democratic Regression in a Newly Divided Europe/Eurasia.” The conference was held at Johns Hopkins University SAIS and co-organized by the FPRI Project on Democratic Transitions and the S. Richard Hirsch Chair in European Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS. It was also sponsored by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and the George Washington University Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies. A conference program is attached; it and the background papers by conference panelists are available on the conference website.

The conclusions and policy recommendations outlined below reflect the two principal co-organizers’ view of the main analytical themes and policy recommendations that emerged from the conference. An initial draft report was circulated for comment to all conference speakers and several other active participants. This final version has been enriched by their comments, and the authors believe that it reflects the views of a solid majority of the conference participants. Nevertheless, not all participants agreed, and this report does not purport to be a consensus document. The authors thus take full responsibility for the judgments and policy recommendations contained herein.

Contrary to the widespread perception by the U.S. public and on Capitol Hill that “Europe is fixed,” the cumulative loss of momentum towards democracy in the postcommunist region has now become a matter of serous concern. It is not true that the formerly communist area no longer requires the high priority and sustained attention that they received in 1990s. While that decade saw notable successes with democratization and economic reform in Central Europe and the Baltics, even many of these early democratic front-runners are now struggling politically and economically.

Since 2005, there has been stagnation and even slight regression in several of the ten emerging Central European democracies. The problem is much more serious, however, in “hybrid regime” countries like Ukraine and Georgia that are still hovering “in between” democracy and authoritarianism. And, more ominously, a large authoritarian camp has formed under the guise of “sovereign democracy.” Moscow has begun working actively to undercut true democratic governance in the region; and China is encouraging the Central Asian republics in a similar direction.

Today, new strains and fault lines increasingly divide the European/Eurasian landmass as a result of strong competition between Russia on the one hand and the European Union, NATO and the United States on the other. The Russia/Ukraine gas pipeline disputes of 2006 through 2009, and the short but destabilizing Russia/Georgia war of August 2008, provide evidence of this region’s fragility and its potential to generate serious confrontations that will inevitably involve the United States. The recent “Open Letter to the Obama Administration” from former Presidents Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa and other prominent leaders of the 1990s democratic transitions further underlines the insecurities and uncertainties felt throughout much of the post-communist region.

Mission Not Accomplished

During the 1990s, the early stages of postcommunist transition seemed to bear out the hope that “a Europe whole and free” would emerge from the rubble of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Most of the 29 states that resulted from the collapse of European communism did indeed initially launch market reforms and make some moves towards greater political pluralism. However, it has become increasingly clear since 2005 that many of these transition efforts have now either stagnated or regressed. Some are currently on sharply divergent paths that lead away from democracy or alignment with American or Western European interests and values.

Now, as we mark the 20th anniversary of the revolutions of 1989, the accession to EU membership of ten postcommunist nations stands in sharp contrast to the authoritarian consolidation of the past few years in Russia, Belarus and Central Asia.

Some scholars and policy analysts have concluded that the postcommunist transitions are over, with the end-point being democracy for some, re-centralized dictatorships for others, and varying degrees of competitive authoritarianism for the remaining countries “in between.” The authors of this report disagree with this analysis. Instead, we are convinced that the whole story has not been written, and that the outcome will depend critically upon the actions of the United States and its allies over the coming decade and beyond.

In analyzing both the current situation and the disturbing recent trends in the postcommunist region, it is useful to divide these countries into three rough groupings:
The emerging democracies: essentially the ten new EU member states, whose Freedom House[1] democracy scores average 2.12 on a scale of 1 to 7 (with Romania occupying the outer edge at 3.36);

The regressive autocracies: Russia, Belarus, Armenia and Azerbaijan plus the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia, with Freedom House scores averaging over 6.00. Notably, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan — the most oil-rich Eurasian nations — have regressed on every democracy measure since 1999.

The mixed regimes: these countries “in between” include Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Bosnia and several other Balkan countries with Freedom House scores ranging from 3.64 to 5.21. A diverse group, we combine them here based on the continuing uncertainty and fragility of their political trajectories.[2]
 

Data from Nations in Transit 2009, www.freedomhouse.org

Market reforms in the postcommunist countries also show three tiers of implementation and a roughly similar regional pattern, according to transition scores produced by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

As the chart indicates, the former Soviet autocracies ended the period with the lowest scores, averaging 2.5 (with 4.3 being the highest score for market reform), while the new EU members appear to have reached a plateau at about 3.6.

The mixed regimes fall squarely in between with an average of 2.85.
 


Data derived from EBRD Transition Reports at http:/www.ebrd.com/country/sector/econo/stats/index.htm

The state of transition differs for each of these three groups of states. Ominously, however, the recently released Freedom House report Nations in Transit 2009 downgraded 18 of the 29 postcommunist countries. Threats to democratic development haunt even the relatively successful EU-10 countries; populism, illiberal politics, electoral stalemate and public disillusionment are all on the rise.

According to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s Life in Transition survey in 2006, prior to the current economic crisis, majorities in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland believed that the political situation had worsened compared to 1989. These nascent democracies will require continued nurturing and encouragement to prevent backsliding and political crisis.

On the other end of the spectrum are the eight increasingly autocratic regimes that have emerged in the former Soviet republics mentioned above. After an initial burst of change in some of these countries during the 1990s, most have regressed steadily for the past decade. Although it is possible that in the longer term autocracy may not be as inevitable as their recent trajectories suggest, they show little promise in the near term. As of 2009, Freedom House considers all eight countries to be “consolidated authoritarian regimes.”

In between these two groupings are the “mixed” or “hybrid” regimes. It is here that the stakes are currently the highest and most fragile democratic forces are in greatest need of support. The Freedom House downgraded Bosnia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine in 2009, and none of these countries have foreseeable prospects of EU membership, previously a powerful force for democratization in the region.

The mixed regime countries (Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and some of the Balkan countries) are teetering “on the edge,” and marginal changes in political development could substantially affect the future trajectory of these countries. Although we know that authoritarian regimes are much more likely to produce another authoritarian regime rather than a democratic break-through, mixed regimes tend to be less predictable, and could move either towards or away from democracy. At this critical moment, U.S. support or its absence might thus exert considerable influence on political outcomes.

Policy Recommendations
A Renewed Commitment to Democracy in Europe

Starting with the Marshall Plan and the creation of NATO, the United States has made massive investments in support of democracy and stability in Europe. With the end of the Cold War in 1989, the United States followed up these investments for over a decade with sizeable efforts to help foster democracy in the postcommunist countries. The United States helped greatly in laying the groundwork for the peaceful addition of ten new emerging democracies from Eastern Europe and the Baltics into NATO and the EU in 2004 and 2007, thus helping to create an expanded zone of democracy and stability in Europe.

Despite a record of considerable results during the 1990s and early 2000s, a very substantial amount of work still remains to be done. Unfortunately, U.S. democracy assistance to postcommunist Europe peaked in 2002 at $1.6 billion and has since plummeted to the $800 million range, as Washington has diverted resources to the Middle East and elsewhere. This represents well over a 50 percent decrease, even before adjusting for inflation and the decline of the U.S. dollar. In some countries such as Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania, U.S. democratization assistance was reduced to zero in 2007 (see data at http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/fs/c25138.htm).

Although other crises across the globe do indeed require larger amounts of democracy assistance, generating these resources at the expense of postcommunist Europe and Eurasia has proven shortsighted. Our initial relatively modest investments during the 1990-2002 period helped to build successful market economies, free media, more responsive government, an active civil society and other institutions that have transformed these countries into viable democracies.

Surely, given the stakes in the “hybrid” countries and some of the other less consolidated transitional countries, it would make sense to return to our earlier levels of assistance — an annual level of $1.6 billion. Investing in a free and secure Europe carries financial benefits, helps avert future wars, and enables the United States. to deal with numerous global issues with the benefit of a stronger European alliance, despite, and partly because of the US’s own economic crisis.

In addition to increasing funding, the United States should also take a qualitatively new approach towards democratization in Europe and Eurasia. This includes sustaining the high-level attention to the region which began to take place during the first year of the Obama administration. As additional resources are devoted to these countries, it is important to use them in ways that take account of the significant insights gained during the past twenty years of postcommunist transition experience. “Postcommunist Democratization Phase II” needs to incorporate the lessons of “Phase I.”

Implementing Lessons Learned

Assuming a commitment to renewed support for democratization in Europe, numerous lessons have emerged from the successes and failures of twenty years of postcommunism that should be incorporated in a renewed and expanded approach. Here are some illustrative examples of the new policy direction that we recommend:

Increase democracy support levels with a long-term perspective.

The United States has tended to view democratization as a short-term process that starts with a break-through to free and fair elections and ends when such elections are repeated and lead to alternation of governments. Yet twenty years of postcommunist experience shows that this perspective is highly short-sighted.

By the late 1990s, when most of the former Warsaw Pact countries had held repeated free elections and passed basic laws embodying democratic and market-based principles, U.S .policymakers began to conclude that the battle for democracy was being won in the entire postcommunist region. By the start of the 200’s, the United States began to phase out much of its democracy assistance in the early reform countries. After the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent Afghanistan and Iraq interventions, democracy assistance was sharply scaled back in many postcommunist countries so that these resources could be shifted to the Middle East and Central Asia.

Yet in recent years, we have learned that democracy faces significant challenges even in the relatively successful Central European and Baltic nations. These emerging democracies merit our continued support not only as part of an effort to counter negative trends in the region such increased corruption, mafia-style crime and trafficking, and the rise of populist right parties, but also as a means of strengthening their “democratic diffusion” effect upon nearby countries.

Continuing support for democratization is needed even more urgently — and on a larger scale — in “hybrid” transitional countries such as Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Bosnia. The U.S. and its European allies must avoid having defeat snatched from the jaws of victory in these countries that experienced promising initial breakthroughs, but have since bogged down or regressed. Although the United States has continued to provide assistance to the “second-wave” transitional countries, including those that experienced “color revolutions” in 2003-2005 (Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan), these efforts were not as large, relative to the challenges, as the programs of the 1990s. Democratic backsliding in countries like Georgia and Kyrgyzstan has given clear notice that successful democratization will require a larger and longer-term effort.

Furthermore, the groundwork should be laid for continuing the effort for at least another decade or two — which is the minimum timeframe for the more difficult cases to show serious promise of effective and sustained democratic governance. Although the largest share of this support should go to the “in-between” countries currently struggling with very weak democratic institutions, we should also be prepared to respond if there are unexpected democratic breakthroughs — for example in Armenia or Belarus — in countries that currently seem unpromising.

A long-term commitment to democracy support is vital to consolidating the successes that U.S. policy has had in this region. While some argue that this is unrealistic given the challenges facing the United States in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere, in fact these challenges make it all the more important for democracy to demonstrate its staying power in postcommunist Europe and Eurasia. Since democracy cannot be won in a day, a program of long-term support is needed. Building upon the strong foundations laid in the 1989-2004 period, the United States, working closely with Europe, should be able to generate significant new successes on a par with those of the first wave of postcommunist democratization.

Change the rhetoric of U.S. support for democracy

The “democracy promotion” rhetoric that the United States has been using in recent years has become widely discredited. U.S. support for democracy must no longer be seen as a guise for forced regime change in countries out of favor with Washington. Nor should they be seen as the imposition of a model designed in the United States. Thus, both the U.S. government and American non-governmental organizations that work in the region need to change the way they communicate the intrinsic appeal of democracy’s underlying values.

U.S. support for democracy should be clearly demand-driven, and it should be about promoting the practice of universal values, such as the rule of law, pluralism, responsive government, citizen participation, free media, robust civil society, truly fair electoral competition, and equal opportunity. By going back to basics and promoting such universal aspirations as accountable government, the United States will gain more support for its democracy support projects worldwide.

The United States also needs to reconsider its strategies for promoting these values. The United States should, for instance, make better use of international forums and should leverage the treaty commitments of transgressors, much as was done in the 1970s and 1980s via “the Helsinki Process.” It is important to distinguish the genuine freedoms that we support from authoritarian models clothed in democratic rhetoric such as Moscow’s “sovereign democracy” or China’s autocratic fast-growth model. Support for democracy should not be framed as anti-Russian, nor as a contest for regional spheres of influence. It should instead be framed in terms of basic human rights and the quality of life aspirations of the people themselves.

Partner more closely with the European Union in support of democracy

U.S. support for democratization has been most effective when conducted in close tandem with U.S. allies, in particular the countries of the European Union. When the United States and the European Union are consistently on the same side, the lure is difficult to resist. EU expansion has been one of the most effective democracy promotion mechanisms in Eastern Europe, the Baltic Republics and the Balkans. Pre-accession conditionality for EU membership, when firmly applied to countries like Slovakia and Croatia, has reinforced democratic institutions and practices at times when they were challenged by illiberal leaders.

After accession, however, the European Union loses much of its ability to affect governance practices in its new member states. This has proved to be a problem in fighting high-level government corruption and mafia-style criminality in Bulgaria and Romania in recent years. While in extreme cases, the EU can use its “nuclear option” and shut off structural funds to an individual country, it does not have many other tools to advance democratic governance, in part because of the lack of acquis communautaire in key areas such as anti-corruption efforts and protection of minority rights. The EU does, however, retain significant leverage over candidates for membership. If used properly, this provides a major opportunity for positive influence on the remaining transitions in the small Western Balkan countries.

European Union conditionality is weaker in the former Soviet republics. Thanks to the “expansion fatigue” that has characterized Brussels since the 2005 constitutional referenda, countries like Ukraine have no clear prospect of EU membership, rendering the prospects of accession too distant to be a major driving force.

Here is where complementary support from the United States is most crucial. One initiative would be for the U.S. to support, and to participate as an external partner in, the EU’s Eastern Partnership Proposal (EPP). The EPP is a joint Polish-Swedish initiative that so far has limited momentum. It is designed to channel resources and expertise to countries like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine — countries that have no current prospect of EU membership, but could be given the prospect of much closer affiliation with the EU over the long term. Just as was the case with the successful “Group of 24” effort in the 1990s to mobilize major resources in support of the early postcommunist transitions, U.S. involvement could make an important difference in the success of this important initiative.

The Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) is another mechanism that could become far more effective in supporting democratic values and institutions if there were closer U.S.-EU strategic collaboration. After the Helsinki Agreements of 1975, the OSCE process helped to promote human rights, educational exchanges and other openings that helped to lay the groundwork for military détente and for greater pluralism in the then-communist countries. With stronger U.S.-European coordination and leadership, it might be possible to counter Moscow’s increasingly successful recent efforts to neuter the OSCE. The Helsinki principles might thus once again become a valuable tool in nurturing the underpinnings of democracy in the postcommunist countries.

Support institutions and processes, not leaders

Perhaps the greatest mistake of U.S. democracy assistance in the postcommunist region after 1989 has been to support individual “democrats” rather than to stress those processes and institutions that are essential to building democracy over the long run. In the 1990s, the United States put enormous faith in Boris Yeltsin to bring democracy to Russia. After the color revolutions of 2003 and 2004, Mikhail Saakashvili and Viktor Yushchenko became poster boys for democratic change in these former Soviet republics. But democracy is not about one leader, it is about investing in processes and institutions independently from individual leaders. Furthermore, insisting on the democratic credentials of particular leaders can harm the credibility of U.S. democracy assistance, if and when they fail to advance democratic agendas.

Long-term democracy support thus needs to focus on rule of law, independent media, government accountability, effective regulation, social welfare, party financing, anti-corruption measures and other practices and institutions that require dozens of years to nurture and perfect. These are some of the areas where U.S. resources and political effort need to be focused, if the postcommunist countries are to achieve more accountable governance over the long term.

This implies that the United States needs to take a broader view of democracy. It is not just a system of elections, but a system of accountable government that is multi-faceted in its implications, a government accountable to the people in more ways and at more times that in elections every four or five years. The symbol of democracy should not be the display of purple thumbs, celebrating a first election, but rather the smooth functioning of administrative offices of the state in the interest of the population. In many countries, democratic accountability is closely linked to economic and social development, for instance in the expansion of health facilities in areas of shortage or the development of institutions to include minorities in political and social life. These features of societal democracy should be more central to U.S. concerns, as they are essential to how populations view the success or failure of democratic institutions.

Redesign assistance programs in collaboration with local activists

U.S. assistance in these areas can best be achieved in partnership with authentic local civic and other non-governmental organizations. It must be demand-driven, and the local partners need to have genuine indigenous roots. Such cooperation has been an important facet of democratic breakthroughs in the postcommunist Europe and Eurasia since 1989. It now needs to be part of a sustained effort to improve, enhance, and consolidate democracy for the long term. Postcommunist Democratization Phase II requires redesigning many programs and approaches in conjunction with local civil society leaders and organizations.

In addition to involvement in project redesign, the United States can and should partner with Central and East European civil society leaders to spread democratization further East. The new “EU-10” countries have deep expertise in postcommunist democratization; they have been successful in the past, and they are largely free from the stigma of U.S. democracy promotion. They may be more effective than traditional U.S. agencies, contractors, and non-governmental organizations in the current ideological climate, particularly in countries where anti-American sentiment is prevalent.

Many analysts give partial credit for the relatively successful breakthroughs of Central Europe and the Baltics to the demonstration effect of well-functioning democracies and market economies immediately to their West during the later years of the Cold War. A similar demonstration effect can be mobilized to support democratization in the mixed regime countries of Europe and Eurasia.

Conclusion

Most Central and Eastern European countries have made great advances towards democracy since 1989. Despite recent setbacks and lingering faults, some of these nations are now among the better-performing democracies in the world. Their evolving institutions and citizen commitments to the values underlying democracy give considerable promise for the long term. Even in less institutionalized and less democratic parts of the former communist region, there are still solid reasons for hope that their earlier achievements can be parlayed into truly representative and accountable government. There are great opportunities to restore democratic momentum and to build upon the impressive progress of the 1990s. To do this, however, the United States needs to recommit to this vital region and work harder to advance democracy, particularly in those in-between countries that have not yet fully institutionalized democracy or reverted to hard authoritarian regimes.

The reasons for renewing this commitment are clear. Twenty years after the revolutions of 1989, we still do not have “a Europe whole and free.” Only with such a Europe — a Europe vibrant, democratic, secure and stable — can the United States and the other established democracies succeed in dealing with the many daunting challenges ahead. We now know that successful postcommunist transitions take not years but decades. Thus some of these countries will require greater time and effort to acquire well-functioning democratic institutions. With an updated and re-invigorated strategy, and in close cooperation with our European partners, we can and should persist in fostering democracy in this vital region of the world.

If we fail in postcommunist Central and Eastern Europe, despite all the favorable circumstances and the democratic momentum in which the West invested so heavily in the 1990s, then how can we succeed elsewhere?


Findings from an October 16, 2009 conference at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies

Organizers: Adrian A. Basora and Mitchell A. Orenstein

Conference Co-Sponsors

• Foreign Policy Research Institute
• S. Richard Hirsch Chair of European Studies (JHU SAIS)
• German Marshall Fund of the United States
• Center for Transatlantic Relations (JHU SAIS)
• The George Washington University (IERES)
  

Notes
1 Freedom House, in its annual publication, Nations in Transit, evaluates the progress in democratization for 29 countries and administrative units in the former communist region using a seven point scale where 1.00 embodies the best practices of liberal democracy and 7.00 indicates a totally closed, autocratic society.
2 Specifically we include here Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Kosovo. Moldova and Kosovo are brought up from FH’s “semi-consolidated authoritarian category” as their proximity to the EU and other emerging democracies may enhance their democratization prospects and their impact on the European region.

Source: FPRI, http://www.fpri.org

An American private military and security company deploys to Somalia as the first US presence in the country since the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu.

By Jody Ray Bennett for ISN Security Watch

Tensions rose in Somalia in the final weeks of October 2009 as the president of the country’s UN-backed transitional government, Sharif Sheik Ahmed, became the target of an insurgent attack while attempting to depart from an airport to Uganda to attend an African Union (AU) summit on refugees and internally displaced people.

According to news reports, al-Shabaab militants “lobbed mortars at the airport, prompting peacekeepers of the AU mission in Somalia known as AMISOM, to fire back.”

At least 24 people were killed and as many as 60 wounded when peacekeepers returned fire in the direction of the crowded Bakara marketplace, causing many to question AMISOM’s effectiveness in Somalia, according to Voice of America.

One Bakara storekeeper told VOA that while “Islamist insurgents cause problems by attacking the peacekeepers, AMISOM's harsh response is doing far more harm than good [and that] people may no longer tolerate [AMISOM’s] presence in Somalia if it continues shelling residential areas.”

Part of the problem might be that AMISOM’s 5,000-strong force is short by 3,000 troops to meet its mandated strength of 8,000 peacekeepers. That ASIMOM fires back through the very public it is mandated to protect reveals the missions’ frustrations to effectively combat against increasingly unorthodox and unexpected attacks by insurgents that, in comparison to what is needed to build a common security in Somalia, are inexpensive and relatively easy to orchestrate.

This has caused the government of Somalia to search for support from other willing parties, eventually awarding a US-based private military and security company (PMSC) a contract to “provide security consulting services and training for government forces.”

Full speed ahead

The company, Corporate Security Solutions Global (CSS Global), is a part of the larger CSS Alliance, a multi-faceted strategic and security solutions provider based in Ada, a township in western Michigan that contains less than 10,000 residents.

According to its website, the company sells everything from security for “office parks, warehouses, manufacturing plants and high-traffic facilities” to “emergency response planning” for multinational corporations and governments. The company also holds CSS HealthForce, which can be contracted to recruit, screen and manage hospital staff and medical personnel.

The company will do just about anything: its “Specialized HelpTeam” even provides “valet, concierge, receiving clerk, front desk, pool attendant and additional service-oriented needs.”

Concerning the side of the business on its way to Somalia, CSS Global advertises its services proudly, selling everything from personal armed security guards, convoy security, military and police training, and evacuations and extraction operations.

In 2005, the company was contracted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide security for trailer parks and commercial buildings after Hurricane Katrina. It has since opened offices throughout the southern US to provide the Gulf states with emergency and disaster preparation services.

Two years after Katrina, the company was awarded a contract by the US Department of Defense (DOD) to provide personal and convoy security outside of the Green Zone in Iraq, and according to a local Michigan daily, “three CSS operatives were killed in 2007 by roadside bombs while escorting convoys” for the company.

Created by two brothers in the early 1990s as “a small detective and corporate security agency […] to a player in international security”, CSS Global currently provides operations and maintenance (O&M) services at Camp Speicher, a US Army operating base near Tikrit in northern Iraq.

More fascinating, however, is that by securing this contract that has been awarded directly by the government of Somalia, the company now represents the first overt American presence involved with the military and security affairs of Somalia since the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, otherwise known as the infamous Black Hawk Down situation. But this time, it is not a US state-led force on the ground, but private military and security firm.

Black Hawk Down redux?

CSS Global’s latest Somali project is interesting on several levels. According to the company, the operation is being funded by “the Arab League and other members of the international community.” If the Arab League is partly funding a private, western company that has already been compared to Blackwater to deploy to a predominately Muslim Somalia, the irony is overwhelming.

One would think this story would receive major media attention given the last time US forces were in Somalia and the Black Hawk Down debacle; however, mainstream American media has been shamefully silent on these recent developments.

While CSS is a private company, its role in Somalia will nevertheless force the company to serve as US representatives and will more than likely be perceived by insurgents as US interest and influence returning to the country.

In an interview with the local Michigan daily, the owners of the company referred to its “protective operations team” that may indicate an intention to place armed security personnel in Somalia or train local Somalis to act as a private force to secure and protect state interests against the insurgency. In the interview, one owner stated he could not comment on the “number of security forces CSS would employ.” How such forces will be used is also unknown.

Nevertheless, while this story remains absent from any mainstream coverage, the private military and security industry is watching very closely.

“It is important that [CSS Global] gets this right, because all eyes are on them. They are an American company, funded in part by the Arab League, to provide protection and training services to the Somali government. The last time America had anything to do with Somalia was back in the 90s with Operation Restore Hope, and we all know how that ended. So the bitter memory of Black Hawk Down is still [fresh in America], and it is still in the memory of our enemy,” Matt Loe, an American private security contractor, former Marine and author of the online blog FeralJundi.com, told ISN Security Watch.

The quiet, private media

More interesting, however, is that unlike many PMSCs that often make mainstream news coverage, CSS has been contracted by the government of Somalia directly.

Unlike the way in which companies such as Blackwater or Triple Canopy were awarded contracts by the US Department of Defense or State, CSS Global was requested by the government of Somalia. This dynamic concerns exactly to which party or parties the company will answer, how these operations will bolster or further erode the reputation of the industry in which it does business, and perhaps most importantly, what effect or byproduct its operations in Somalia will create for US-Somali relations in the future.

“I hope that today's war planners and strategists are thinking long and hard about what implications CSS Global could have on the strategy in Somalia. To say that PMCs or PSCs do not have an impact on strategy for this war is dangerously naive. To put it in [counterinsurgency] terms, CSS Global will be interacting with the local populations, like it or not, and [US strategy] has been deficient in addressing the impact the contracting community has on counter-insurgency. The silence on it in the think tank community is deafening,” Loe told ISN Security Watch.

“What is missing from this story is the lack of response from the media and from the war planners. When the story first came out, there was silence. This is a big story, because of the US history in Somalia. [The US is] going back there, and we are doing it in a roundabout way through a private military company, whether we want to or not,” Loe said.

While critics of the industry maintain that private military and security companies are used by governments in order to circumvent attention, responsibility and accountability for activities that are contracted to non-state entities, those within the industry see CSS Global’s Somali contract as an opportunity to repair the tarnished reputation of the industry. There is tremendous concern by those in the industry who are paying attention, and some remain curious about whether CSS Global has what it takes to help turn the situation in Somalia around.

“I have no doubt that al-Shabaab will do all they can to create another Blackhawk Down or Blackwater Bridge scenario to capitalize on. It would make for the ultimate in propaganda value. Or better yet, to create the environment for which a Nisour Square scenario could play out, where contractors kill civilians in a crossfire situation. Is CSS Global ready for that?” Loe said.

“I just hope that they are prepared for this kind of thing, because in essence, they are representing the US in that country again. Is CSS Global is the best company for the job, and do they have the capability and resources to make this work? Or did Somalia and the Arab League get suckered into contracting with a company that really doesn't have the experience for this kind of thing?”

The company has yet to respond to ISN Security Watch’s queries.

It seems the company does not want to generate a lot of attention about its role in Somalia, and as a result, many questions remain. To date, the company has given only one interview to a local publication in its home state of Michigan, which was later criticized by the Grand Rapids Institute for Media and Democracy (GRID) for publishing a “favorable” story that interviewed the company’s owners who “[made] vague comments about what they will be doing in Somalia.”


Jody Ray Bennett is a freelance writer and academic researcher. His areas of analysis include the private military and security industry, the materialization of non-state forces and the transformation of modern warfare. This article was published by International Relations and Security Network (ISN)

Creative Commons "Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported"

By Vladimir Gel’man

The practice of subnational authoritarianism in the Soviet period was the “point of departure” for processes of decentralization in the 1990s and recentralization in the 2000s, both of which were path dependent in that they depended heavily on historical legacies. The centralized subnational party authoritarianism of the USSR was a complex political project. On one hand, it was based on a hierarchical concentration of power and resources, which was supported by the vertically integrated structures of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the nation-wide branch ministries and agencies, including the coercive agencies from the military to the State Security Committee (KGB). On the other hand, at the local level, the territorial committees of the CPSU performed the functions of social integration and distribution of social benefits. Also, they acted as interest groups in lobbying the interests of territories in the upper echelons of the political hierarchy.

In the 1960s–1980s, the Soviet system of regional and local governance came into conflict with the constantly decreasing effectiveness of central control. The relations between the national and sub-national regimes in the USSR can be described as “loyalty in exchange for non-interference.” Perestroika, accompanied by a large-scale change in the managerial
cadres at the local level, dealt a powerful blow to the balance of power defining subnational authoritarianism.

But the collapse of the Soviet Union, the processes of economic transformation, and the politics of institutional change, unleashed by the federal Center at the local level, quickly led to the replacement of the centralized subnational authoritarianism with decentralized subnational authoritarianism.

First, the unintended consequences of the dissolution of the USSR led to the substantial weakening not only of the distributive, but also the coercive capacity of the Center. The side effect was the spontaneous transfer from the Center to the local level of the most important powers and resources, including the leverage capacity of institutional regulation and the coercive apparatus, which at times were de facto subordinate to regional political-financial (and criminal) groups. Second, the economic crisis of the 1990s weakened ties between the
national economy and regional “closed markets”, which were only partially restored by the territorial expansion of the national financial-industrial groups at the beginning of the 2000s.

Against the background of the spatial polarization and growing inequality both between regions and between municipalities within regions and the displacement of resource bases at the subnational level, these processes enabled the local elites to exercise greater control over economic resources. In particular, they played the role of “veto groups” in terms of property rights and concentrated in their hands control over budgetary flows, the share of which for subnational governments exceeded 60 percent of the overall Russian budget. Third, the federal policy of institution building in the area of regional and local governance was rather inconsistent; in general, it undermined the incipient efforts in many regions to establish political pluralism. Thus, in place of the excessive centralization of the Soviet period came the excessive decentralization of the 1990s.

The Decentralized 1990s

Although the characteristics of the decentralized political regimes in the regions and cities of Russia differed depending on the constellation of the elites in the various regions and cities, the majority of them demonstrated trends toward the establishment of decentralized subnational authoritarianism. The societal base of these regimes included various social groups that were dependent on the regional and local authorities, such as public sector employees, local business, and local criminal groups, who gained an opportunity to legalize their activities by supporting the status quo. In several Russian republics, ethnic mobilization served as a means for strengthening the monopoly of the ethnic elites within the framework of subnational authoritarianism.

The weakness of the political parties at the local level made it easier for regional and local leaders to monopolize power despite the conduct of competitive elections because they were not attached to any of the parties.

For its part, the Center, unable to stop the development of subnational authoritarianism, tried to use the powers of the local leaders in order to preserve its own power in the course of competitive federal elections. The result of this was the policy of “selective appeasement” for some territories and the transfer of exclusive rights and powers to several regions. It is not surprising that most of observers deemed these trends as negative.

Many features of decentralized subnational authoritarianism in the Russia of the 1990s coincided with the characteristics of the American “political machines” at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In both cases, subnational regimes were inherently defined by patrimonial control over political processes at the local level, political influence at the federal level, and a monopoly of ties with federal actors. Additionally, the national parties in both cases were weak and the ties of local leaders to them were ad hoc, they both had high levels of economic monopolization and corruption and a tendency for economic interest groups to capture the state. But there were significant differences between the Russian and American cases.

First, in contrast to the US, in Russia demand to undermine the subnational authoritarianism from below at the local level was rather weak and no equivalent of the reformist (“progressive”) movement materialized. Second, if in the US at the beginning of the 20th century, federal political and economic actors sought to undermine the “political machines,” in Russia such alliances did not develop due to the policy of the Center. In the 1990s, the Center did not have the resources to fight subnational authoritarianism and had to accept it as a given, while in the 2000s the Center used its opportunities to co-opt subnational authoritarianism “from above” into a national system of authoritarian governance.

Recentralization in the 2000s

The policy of recentralizing governance, begun in 2000 at the initiative of Vladimir Putin, became the answer to these challenges. It sought to restore the Center’s control over the coercive and distributional capacity of the state, which in the 1990s ended up under the control of local actors. The administrative recentralization (including the return to the Center’s control over regional branches of federal agencies), and the recentralization of economic resources (which led to the increased concentration of financial resources in the hands of the Center at the expense of the regional and local elites), were only some of the consequences of this policy. What was its influence on subnational authoritarianism in Russia?

The restoration of central control squeezed the local actors to the periphery of national politics and policy – their role in federal decision-making dropped sharply and this reduced influence was institutionalized in such changes as the reform of the Federation Council and the introduction of the proportional electoral system in the State Duma elections.

Nevertheless, dictating from above to local actors through the means of the centralized state apparatus had only a limited impact. At the subnational level, the Center was not able to take control of local regimes exclusively through the use of administrative measures because many of these regimes by the beginning of the 2000s had been able to eradicate the autonomous potential of the opposition in the form of local business, legislatures, and political parties.

Therefore, the most important instrument for restoring central control was through institutional changes and, in particular, transferring the influence of national political parties from the national to the regional and local levels. At the initiative of the presidential administration, starting in 2003, regional legislative elections had to be conducted with a mixed electoral system, making it possible to strengthen the influence of national parties in the regions, particularly the main weapon of the Kremlin – United Russia. However, this reform had only a limited impact in terms of strengthening central control over local leaders. In fact, stimulating inter-party competition increased the availability of political alternatives at the regional and local levels, which could in the future facilitate efforts to undermine subnational authoritarianism. Such a political trend could hardly fit the plans of the country’s leaders, who were above all interested in holding onto power in the wake of the 2007–2008 federal elections. Their political survival could be assured most easily by including the local “political machines” in a nation-wide political “convoy”. Therefore the Center’s 2004 decision to abolish direct popular elections for governors was a logical continuation of the policy of recentralization. Introducing the effective appointment of governors  essentially put in place a new informal contract between the Center and local leaders, which resolved the problem of mutual commitments that had earlier prevented United Russia from becoming a dominant party. The institutional changes also provided new incentives for the behavior of local leaders, who had to demonstrate their loyalty to United Russia while not giving up their previous opportunities to diversify their political investments.

It was therefore no surprise that in the 2007 State Duma elections, 65 of 85 governors joined the United Russia list. For its part, the Center generally sought to preserve in power the existing regional leaders to take advantage of their ability to deliver votes for the Center in the federal elections. It was precisely this ability to control the local electoral process through any means necessary, rather than effective regional and local governance, that guaranteed the continued political survival of the governors appointed by the Kremlin during the
2007–2008 electoral cycle. The compromise between the federal and local leaders, achieved on the basis of the scheme “monopoly control on power in exchange for the ‘correct’ results in the elections” was the most important part of Russia’s subnational authoritarianism.

The centralization of subnational authoritarianism and the transformation of its foundation from a purely personalistic to a party base strengthened the local regimes since the “political monopoly of the governors should coincide with the monopoly of United Russia in all meaningful electoral positions at the regional and local levels.” The economic base of the centralized subnational party authoritarianism is a system of politically-driven exchanges of resources between the Center and regional and local authorities. Large corporations also supported this economic base because they had expanded their influence at the local level during the 2000s and became interested in supporting the status quo there. They were likewise politically dependent on the Center. In contrast with the 1990s, the social base of subnational (as well as national) authoritarianism grew due to the expansion of the urban middle class, which was prepared to support the status quo in conditions of economic growth and the consumer boom and was not inclined to violate the evolving political balance of power.

Today’s Centralized Subnational Party - Authoritarianism
 
The centralized subnational party authoritarianism that evolved in Russia during the 2000s significantly differs from the centralized bureaucratic model practiced in post-Soviet Central Asia and Belarus, and the model of decentralized subnational authoritarianism of the 1990s. Rather, its characteristics are more similar to the centralized subnational party authoritarianism of Southern Italy in the 1950s–1980s. The main similarity is not only the predominance of patron-client ties, the negative incentives to be loyal among local actors and the insignificance of their compensation from the ruling groups, but also the absence of significant forces capable of undermining the local regimes from below.

The main difference in the Russian case is the political monopoly of the dominant party not only at the subnational level, but also at the federal level, making it comparable to the cases of Mexico in the 1930–1980s and the USSR.

Indeed, comparing today’s subnational regimes in Russia with the practice of regional and local management of the Soviet period provides a basis for a series of parallels. As it was 30–40 years ago, Russian regions and cities are ruled by bureaucrats who are de facto appointed by the Center with only formal approval by the local elite. Their ability to resolve the most important economic issues – ensuring the development of the territory and attracting resources from outside – as before depends on the effectiveness of informal lobbying in the
Center. Their opportunity for political maneuvering at the local level and beyond its borders is limited by the structure of economic interest groups at the level of the regions and cities.

Similar also is the tendency for the local authorities and economic actors to establish mutual ties along corporatist models. And, although United Russia is not a reincarnation of the CPSU, and the role of today’s corporations, led by Gazprom, has little in common with the dictates of the former nation-wide branch ministries, the non-competitive nature of the
federal and subnational regimes and the monopolization of the economy, though no longer based on central planning but on extracting resource rents, makes it possible to identify many similar trends. The Center, as in the Soviet period, seeks to minimize the loss of its control over the local elites, rushing to redistribute rents among the local lobby groups and selectively repress those who fall under the dispensation of mid-level bureaucrats. Therefore again, as in Soviet times, there is a spontaneous transfer of powers and resources from
the Center to local leaders (especially in the republics) within the framework of an informal contract exchanging loyalty for non-interference.

The Russian subnational authoritarianism of the 2000s completed a U-turn from the decentralized to centralized party model according to the scheme “back in the USSR.” In contrast to the decentralized subnational authoritarianism, which was a temporary and transitional phenomenon in the process of state and institution building, centralized subnational authoritarianism is much more stable. Its framework is based, first of all, on a concentration of the coercive and distributional capacities of the state in the hands of the ruling group in the Center, which is able to block efforts to undermine the status quo at the local level from above, and, second, the lack of influential actors capable of carrying out such an undermining from below.

From this point of view, centralized subnational party authoritarianism can be stable. The experience of such regimes from southern Italy to Mexico shows that their undermining is more likely as a result of the collapse of the national regime and/or the party system, than under the influence of their internal evolution at the local level. Therefore one can predict that in the short-term there is little reason to expect that subnational authoritarianism in Russia will significantly weaken or fall of its own accord. In fact, even the possible potential liberalization and democratization of the regime at the national level does not guarantee the undermining of the local regimes. In addition to the historical legacy of the Soviet (and pre-Soviet) period, the formation of a new institutional legacy in the 1990s and especially in the 2000s hinders the undermining of subnational authoritarianism in Russia.

One can expect that in the short-term, with the preservation of the current Russian national and local regimes, there will be a further conservation (if not stagnation) of subnational authoritarian regimes. Also, the chances for fully-fledged democratization of the Russian national political system and the chances for the effective state building needed to create the conditions for the successful development of its cities and regions depends ultimately on the overcoming of subnational authoritarianism in Russia.


Vladimir Gel’man is a Professor in the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology at the European University in St. Petersburg.

Source: Russian and Eurasian Security

Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan has relocated next door to Tajikistan, but analysts doubt it will move back into Central Asia.

By Ainagul Abdrakhmanova, Aida Kasymalieva, Inga Sikorskaya, and Anara Yusupova in Bishkek, and Lola Olimova and Аrdasher Tahamtan in Dushanbe

Central Asia’s most feared Islamist group is back in the news, with reports that it has regrouped in northern Afghanistan close to the border with Tajikistan. At first sight, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, IMU, looks positioned to mount a repeat of the incursions it mounted in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan a decade ago, especially as a string of armed attacks were reported over the summer.

Despite the reported death of its leader Tohir Yoldash, the IMU still seems to be a cohesive military force with a radical Islamist agenda. With powerful alliances with the Taleban and al-Qaeda, it could in theory pose a serious security threat to the former Soviet states of Central Asia.

When IWPR reporters questioned security experts in the region, they agreed that sporadic outbreaks of violence in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, in particular, make the threat of renewed insurgent activity possible. But they said that for the moment, this would not be on a scale that Central Asian governments could not handle, and the IMU lacked a substantial following in the region.

If Yoldash is indeed dead – which a recent report throws into some doubt – there are questions about whether the IMU will survive in its present form under a new leader or break up into smaller factions. Some experts also suggest that the group has relocated to Afghanistan not entirely by choice, but because the combination of a major Pakistani ground offensive and United States unmanned planes on a mission to pick off al-Qaeda’s top men is making their stay in South Waziristan untenable.

UZBEK MILITANTS ON THE MOVE

This autumn, Afghan officials have expressed repeated concern that the Taleban are shifting forces to the north of the country. Talking to journalists on September 23, Afghan General Mustafa Patang said hundreds of militants had arrived in the north.

IMU forces are part of this flow, and many seem to have turned up in Kunduz province, which adjoins Tajikistan, although they have also been sighted in other northern provinces.

“Tohir Yoldash’s men have come to northern Afghanistan and have caused much of our recent insecurity,” General Khalilullah Aminzada, security chief of Jowzjan province in the northwest, told IWPR reporters in Afghanistan earlier this autumn.

Sanobar Shermatova, a Moscow-based Central Asia analyst, has argued in an article entitled Should Central Asia Fear Taleban Spillover? that on the one hand, the Uzbek militants have moved because their stronghold in South Waziristan is no longer a safe haven; and on the other, that they have been assigned Kunduz as their area of operation since they are familiar with the territory.

The aim, she argues, may be to disrupt the new northern supply route now being used by NATO and Coalition forces in Afghanistan, after Central Asian governments offered routes through their territory.

Abdughani Mamadazimov, who heads the National Association of Political Scientists of Tajikistan, agrees that the IMU is under increasing pressure in Pakistan, not only from government troops and US air strikes, and points out that some local Pashtun tribal leaders are hostile to what they regard as an alien presence on their territory. There have been reports in recent years that Uzbek militants have sided with their protector Baitullah Mehsud in fighting with rival Pashtun tribal groups.

Mamadazimov likened the IMU to a “wounded beast” pursued by hunters and forced to become “agile and flexible, changing location frequently”.

FROM UZBEKISTAN TO WAZIRISTAN

The seeds of the IMU grew in Uzbekistan’s Fergana Valley in the early Nineties, when Yoldash was a leading figure in an Islamic group called Adolat based in the city of Namangan in Fergana Valley. A crackdown ordered by President Islam Karimov forced members to flee the country, and many became caught up in a civil war in neighbouring Tajikistan, where they fought alongside Islamist forces against the government, with Jumaboy Khojaev, otherwise known as Juma Namangani, as their military commander.

It was after the Tajik conflict ended in 1997 that the IMU emerged as a distinct force whose agenda was to topple secular governments in Central Asian states, first and foremost in its homeland Uzbekistan. To this end, IMU guerrillas launched a series of raids into Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in 1999 and 2000. These attacks made international headlines and alerted regional governments to shortcomings in their security forces, but did not pose an existential threat to these states.

By this time, with bases in Afghanistan, the group had formed an alliance with that country’s Taleban rulers, and when the US-led Coalition arrived in late 2001, the IMU put up resistance in Kunduz. Namangani was killed, and the survivors escaped to Pakistan’s lawless fringes

Yoldash, who had played more of an ideological role while Namangani led the troops, now stepped in as overall leader. According to Shermatova, the high casualties the IMU sustained in Kunduz led Yoldash to announce a change in strategy. Shifting from a specifically Central Asian focus, “the IMU joined the global jihad against the West,” she said.

In South Waziristan, the tribal agency where it remained until recent months, the IMU reportedly maintained close ties with Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taleban leader killed by a US rocket in early August.

The IMU has preserved its distinctive Uzbek identity, producing propaganda videos and speeches by Yoldash which mix global jihadi rhetoric with Central Asia-specific content.

These days, though, it is hard to say how many IMU members are actually from Uzbekistan.

Andrei Grozin, director of the Central Asian department at the Commonwealth of Independent States Institute in Moscow, believes the IMU is no longer the “purely Uzbek” organisation it once was, but instead a “large organised group of foreign mercenaries”.

“It is mainly a tool that is used by the leadership of other organisations like the Taleban and al-Qaeda,” he said.

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

The IMU’s future was cast into doubt by reports that Yoldash had been wounded in a US rocket on August 27 and died shortly afterwards. Pakistani intelligence sources confirmed his death, and it appeared that, like his ally Baitullah Mehsud, killed in a similar manner earlier that month, the IMU leader actually was dead.

However, reports have now appeared that Yoldash has surfaced. The Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute said on November 16 that the IMU had released a propaganda video that included a talk by Yoldash.

It remains unclear whether the footage offers clues as to whether it really is new. Although an IMU spokesman denied reports of Yoldash’s death soon after they first appeared in September, this is the first time since then that a purported statement from the leader himself has appeared.

Orozbek Moldaliev, who heads Religion, Politics and Security, a think-tank in Kyrgyzstan, believes Yoldash will be hard to replace.

“He devoted 21 years to this movement. He and Juma Namangani complemented one another well,” said Moldaliev. “After his death, there will be a leadership struggle, and this far it is not clear whether it will lead to a split, or whether someone will be able to keep the movement together.”

According to Miroslav Niazov, former secretary of the Kyrgyz Security Council, Yoldash was an “extraordinarily influential figure” who commanded authority and was able to “gather forces and like-minded people around him to make a serious impact on the Central Asian region”.

Tashpulat Yoldashev, an Uzbek political analyst now living abroad, predicts that internal divisions will cause the IMU to “fall into several parts”, but he added that its “sponsors” – those who provide funding for groups of this kind – would prevent it from disappearing.

If it wanted to refocus its energies on Central Asia, the IMU would be hard pushed to recruit support, as it has little support on the ground, analysts say.

Marat Mamadshoev, editor-in-chief of the Asia Plus newspaper in Tajikistan, believes the group’s influence is over-estimated. “The IMU doesn’t currently pose a real thereat to the region’s security,” he said “The authoritarian regimes that dominate the region do not have broad-based public support, but neither does the IMU in Uzbekistan, except in a few areas.”

Nematullo Mirsaidov, chief editor of the Tretyi Vzglyad newspaper based in Isfara in northern Tajikistan, is similarly dismissive. “Aside from carrying out terrorist attacks, it is incapable of doing anything more substantial, something that would alter the public mood,” he said.

UPSURGE IN VIOLENCE, BUT STILL LOCALISED

Militant groups are active in Central Asia, albeit on a small scale. Over the spring and summer, an armed group believed to consist of militants previously based in Pakistan established itself in the eastern mountains of Tajikistan. It was dispersed after some skirmishes with government security forces.(For reports on these incursions, read Chasing Phantoms in the Tajik Mountains and Taming Tajikistan’s Eastern Valleys.

Officials identified some of the militants involved as having IMU links, and last month they reported that police had killed four suspected IMU members and arrested one.

In the south of Kyrgyzstan, there were also sporadic clashes between militants and the security forces. In October, Kyrgyz border guards were fired on by unidentified armed men trying to cross over from Tajikistan.

In Uzbekistan, a series of attacks appeared to target police as representatives of the state.

In late May, a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Khanabad, near the city of Andijan, came under attack. A policeman and one of the attackers were wounded in the exchange of fire, according to the Uzbek prosecutor’s office. The next day, a suicide bomber killed himself and a policeman in Andijan itself.

In August the deputy head of the interior ministry’s counter-terrorism department, Colonel Hasan Asadov, was killed. Two Muslim clerics were attacked in July in apparently related incidents – Abror Abrorov, deputy head of the Kukeldash madrassa in Tashkent was murdered, and the capital’s chief imam or mosque leader, Anvar-Qori Tursunov, was the target of a failed assassination attempt. It seems most likely that both clerics were singled out by militants for being too close to government and for preaching against radicalism.

At the end of August, security forces conducting a sweep in the capital Tashkent cornered a group of armed men and engaged them in a sustained gunbattle, killing two or three of them, according to various reports.

The question now being asked is whether these attacks were coordinated, and masterminded by the IMU as a precursor to a larger incursion.

Mirsaidov believes that might be the case.

“It’s most likely that all these incidents were elements of an operation designed to test the authorities’ military strength and the popular mood,” he said. “If the outcome had been successful, there might have been incursions by more substantial forces. It’s no coincidence that the clashes happened in those areas where militants would be able to enter [from Afghanistan], and where the local population might have been supportive. But it didn’t come off.”

Others are less certain that the IMU or allied groups have a grand plan.

“The acts of terrorism taking place here [in Central Asia generally] are largely spontaneous,” said Mamadshoev. “There’s no unified leadership, and frankly I don’t see any kind of logic to them.”

ARE OTHER GROUPS INVOLVED?

If it is the case, as many analysts interviewed for this report suggest, that the IMU is not the driving force behind sporadic militant attacks in the Central Asian states, could other groups with a stronger presence on the ground be playing a part?

Within Central Asia, officials often accuse Hizb ut-Tahrir of complicity in violent incidents. This group has a radical agenda – replacing secular governments with an Islamic state – but always insists it is against violence.

Many analysts say there is little hard evidence to connect Hizb ut-Tahrir with armed attacks in the region, although one of those interviewed, Mirsaidov, said it was possible that the group has “renounced non-violent struggle [and] its members may be behind the attacks on law-enforcement agencies.”

Moldaliev argues that a distinction should be made between movements like Hizb ut-Tahrir which seek to recruit as large a following as possible, and armed groups like the IMU which espouse violence and maintain a smaller but more committed membership.

Shermatova believes it “highly unlikely” that Hizb ut-Tahrir or Tablighi Jamaat, a prosyletising group now active in Central Asia, are involved in violence, even if officials sometimes level that accusation against them.

At the same time, she said, organisations preaching radical Islam may provide militants with a recruiting ground. “The authorities suspect that they supply members for more radical groups. Experts believe that some members of these non-jihadi religious groups go off and join armed groups under the influence of preachers,” she said.

Another possible suspect is the Islamic Jihad Group, which split off from the IMU in Pakistan after an apparent disagreement over strategy.

Vitaly Ponomarev, a Central Asia expert with the Moscow-based Human Rights group Memorial, points out that although information about the Islamic Jihad Group remains sketchy, it has claimed responsibility for previous violence in Uzbekistan.

“It is more secretive than the IMU, but that is no reason to ignore it completely, especially now that there’s sufficient evidence to say it is becoming more active in Central Asia,” said Ponomarev.

Assessments of the IMU’s role and influence are complicated by the tendency for Central Asian governments to blame it for violence in the region, even when evidence for this is thin on the ground. Analysts advise treating such claims with caution.

Moldaliev said it was common practice for investigators to cite both the IMU and Hizb ut-Tahrir as culprits after attacks took place.

“Given that investigations are kept under wraps and given the nature of legal practice generally in Central Asia, it’s difficult to establish IMU complicity,” he said. “There’s always a temptation to exaggerate the threat a bit, especially when [law enforcement] budgets are under review.”

According to Uzbek political analyst Yoldashev, “It plays into the hands of Central Asian governments to position themselves as the victims of Islamic extremism and terrorism, and to blame innocent people with the aim of obtaining more assistance from the US and European Union and of justifying repressive policies.”

RISKS FROM LOCAL GRIEVANCES, NOT GLOBAL JIHAD

Niazov, the former secretary of Kyrgyzstan’s Security Council, believes the IMU still has some life left in it.

“It isn’t about how numerous the IMU is, but rather about what kind of support it has,” he said.

Niazov said that while Islamic groups were not in a position to mount a serious military threat to Central Asian states, the danger was that other factors would come together to create instability which they could then take advantage of.

“The conditions would have to be right for it,” he explained. “But the conditions are there for a social upheaval – disputes over water, land and borders, fast-rising prices and low wages, unemployment and migration. These small and disparate point of tension could become systemic and grow into one cohesive whole.

“So one cannot say that these [radical Islamic] forces will spark an upheaval, but they could exploit the unfavourable situation in the region to take charge of that upheaval.”

To defuse the risks of widespread violence led by radicals like the IMU, Shermatova believes Central Asian governments should adopt a mix of security and social policies.

Counter-insurgency tactics might include better border controls to stop people bribing their way across, while offering an amnesty to militants who return from Afghanistan and Pakistan might have a positive effect, she said.

But governments must also tackle the social and economic problems that drive people towards extremist views . Just one step – clearing away corruption and bureaucracy so as to allow small businesses to take off and thrive – would be “revolutionary” in its effects, Shermatova said.

“Poverty gives rise to discontent and encourages the search for political methods of changing society,” she added.


Ainagul Abdrakhmanova and Anara Yusupova (a pseudonym) are IWPR-trained reporters in Kyrgyzstan; Aida Kasymalieva and Inga Sikorskaya are IWPR editors based in Bishkek. Lola Olimova is an IWPR editor in Dushanbe and Аrdasher Tahamtan is the pseudonym of a journalist in Tajikistan.

This article originally appeared as a Special Report, produced by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, www.iwpr.net

By Clara Marina O’Donnell

US President Barack Obama is firmly committed to making progress towards peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since taking office, he has repeatedly emphasised the need to work towards a two-state solution – most recently in his first speech to the Muslim world in Cairo on 4 June, in which he said that he would “personally pursue” this objective. President Obama also looks set to take on the role of a more neutral mediator than his predecessors. He has made clear that while Israel and the US enjoy an unbreakable bond, he expects Israel
to deliver on its commitments to peace, notably by stopping the construction of settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

However, conditions in the Middle East are far from propitious for peace talks. For the last three years Palestinians have been divided and feuding. Hamas, despite being isolated by the international community, is still strong and in control of the Gaza Strip. Disorder and radicalisation are spreading across the Strip, where the social fabric has been severely weakened by the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s border closures and military conflict between Hamas and the Israeli army.

Meanwhile, the new Israeli government is only reluctantly endorsing a two-state solution. In a speech on 14 June, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a significant concession. Breaking with his longstanding opposition, he agreed to the goal of an independent Palestinian state. But some of the conditions which he attached to this state – such as his insistence that all of Jerusalem should remain the capital of Israel – would make it unacceptable to Palestinians, while other conditions even raise questions about such a state’s viability. In particular, Netanyahu continues to oppose freezing the growth of settlements, despite unprecedented US pressure. In addition, the Israeli government has shown no inclination to loosen the tight blockade on Gaza, while some parties in the coalition are hostile to Israel’s Arab minority.

The EU, which has long sought to help end the Middle East conflict, will welcome the US commitment to achieving peace – particularly as it comes from an administration which has
more in common with Europe’s worldview than previous US administrations. But if there is to be any hope of making progress towards peace, the EU must do its utmost to support US
efforts. To be an effective partner, EU member states must develop a consensus on the best way to engage with the new Israeli government, and on the conditions they would attach to engagement with a new Palestinian government of national unity.

EU-ISRAELI RELATIONSHIP: HOW BEST TO ENGAGE

The EU has always found it difficult to exert pressure on Israel. Despite strong cultural affinities and significant improvements in bilateral relations over the years, many Israelis do
not rate the EU as a diplomatic heavyweight, and they consider some European countries to be insensitive to Israel’s security concerns. As a result, Israel has been reluctant to grant the EU a significant role in the diplomatic track of the peace process.

Nevertheless, European governments should not stop trying to encourage Israel to fully recommit to peace negotiations. The EU should apply ‘tough love’ to Israel: it should present itself as a true friend, keen to deepen bilateral relations and provide full assistance to the peace process, including steadfast support for Israel’s security. But because it is a friend,
and because a two-state solution is essential to guarantee Israel’s long-term security, the EU must make clear that it cannot deepen EUIsraeli relations if Israel does not demonstrate
its commitment to the peace process by its actions on the ground.

The EU has repeatedly debated whether it should link its bilateral relations with Israel to progress in the Middle East peace process. Some member states, such as Belgium, Ireland
and Greece, have favoured making deeper EUIsrael relations conditional on Israeli goodwill towards the peace process. Others, including the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, have
firmly opposed any such linkage. As a result, the EU has developed the habit of obscuring the issue in its bilateral agreements with Israel with language ambiguous enough to satisfy
both groups.

In 2008 the EU and Israel started negotiating an upgrade in their bilateral relations. Some EU countries were already uncomfortable when these talks started: Israel was not taking steps to freeze settlements and it was doing little to improve movement and access within the West Bank, despite the ongoing Annapolis peace process. Subsequent events have intensified EU frustrations. EU governments informally suspended the negotiations in response to the Israeli incursion into Gaza in January, which killed over 1,000 Palestinians and left infrastructure badly damaged, including EU-funded projects. The new Israeli government’s attitude to the peace process, including its unwillingness to curb the growth of settlements and fully open the borders to Gaza for humanitarian purposes, has further strengthened the EU’s reluctance to discuss an upgrade. At the EU-Israeli association council on 15 June, the EU informed Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, that the offer of deeper relations remained on the table, but that the Israeli government had to fully recommit to the peace
process for negotiations to be concluded. Member states welcomed Netanyahu’s endorsement of a two-state solution as an important step in the right direction, but felt that Israel
needed to do more.

It was no small achievement for the EU to adopt this stance. Even before Netanyahu officially endorsed a two-state solution, some member states had been vigorously opposed to suspending talks on the upgrade. Italy’s foreign minister, Franco Frattini, and the then Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, had previously publicly stated that the upgrade should
go ahead regardless of progress in the peace process. In addition, Israel threatened to end the EU’s involvement in peace efforts if the upgrade was suspended. But bilateral relations
are the only source of leverage member states can use to influence Israel. So the EU was right to keep the upgrade on hold, while maintaining its extensive current bilateral co-operation.

Over the coming months, EU member states must stand firm. They should insist on clear progress on the ground – both with regards to settlements and to opening the borders to Gaza for unrestricted humanitarian assistance and trade. In exchange, not only should the EU agree to deepen its relations with Israel, but it should also offer to assist Israel in stopping
weapons smuggling into Gaza, reinstate its Gaza border monitoring mission, and take a leading role in any peacekeeping mission which might be called upon in the longer-term.

Furthermore, the EU should take advantage of the strong stance of Barack Obama on settlements to reinforce its own pressure on Israel. As well as reminding Israeli officials of the need for progress, the EU should strengthen its monitoring efforts to ensure that it does not support settlements unwittingly. Israel benefits from preferential access to EU markets, but products from Israeli settlements do not. There have been various allegations, most recently in a UK foreign office memo, that some goods from the settlements are illegally using the preferential trade arrangements. The EU should explore any evidence of misuse, and if necessary it should consider renegotiating the monitoring mechanisms with Israel. There are also allegations that European Commission research funding has been inadvertently awarded to settlers in the West Bank. Again, the EU should explore these allegations and, if necessary, put an end to this practice. The amount of funds awarded to the settlements might be minimal, as might be the lost import duties, but by taking action European governments will be sending an important political signal to Israel that they take the settlements question seriously.

SUPPORT PALESTINIAN RECONCILIATION

Even if the Israeli government fully recommits to a two-state solution, progress on serious peace talks will still not be possible if the Palestinians remain divided. A stable peaceful settlement can be negotiated only with a united Palestinian partner – one which can speak on behalf of all Palestinians, and has the authority to implement any decisions.

The last attempt to negotiate a peaceful settlement, the Annapolis peace process (which was launched in November 2007 by the former US president, George W Bush), was destined to fail because it was based on a ‘West Bank first’ approach. Peace talks were held between Israel and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, while the international community continued to isolate Hamas. The prospect of peace and improved living conditions in the West Bank was supposed to undermine Hamas’s support base amongst Palestinians.

But Abbas’s power base was so weak he could barely speak on behalf of the West Bank, let alone on behalf of all Palestinians. Not only did the peace talks not deliver but, by supporting the ‘West Bank first’ policy, the US, the EU and many Arab states contributed to deepening divisions amongst Palestinians by reducing the incentives for reconciliation. (The US and Israel even made clear that they would suspend negotiations if Abbas engaged with Hamas.)

Faced with the failure of Annapolis and of the policy of isolation, international opinion on how to deal with the Palestinians has been shifting. Egypt, previously a strong supporter
of isolating Hamas, has been attempting to forge a Palestinian government of national unity, through several rounds of mediation.

The EU has supported efforts to promote Palestinian reconciliation. In addition, many member states have been revisiting their terms of engagement for a national unity government.
Officially, in order to provide financial support to a government involving Hamas, the EU (like the US) requires the group to respect three principles set out by the Quartet – recognition
of Israel, acceptance of previous peace agreements and an end to violence. But unofficially, several member states would be open to more flexibility – such as working with a national unity government which only implicitly recognised the three principles, or requiring only Hamas members of government (instead of the whole movement) to recognise the conditions.
However the Netherlands and the Czech Republic lead a group of member states still strongly opposed to loosening the Quartet’s principles.

An unfortunate consequence of the Palestinian factions’ failure to forge a government of national unity is that the EU and its international partners are effectively condemned to
supporting a ‘West Bank first’ policy. President Abbas remains the only partner with whom the EU and others engage.

So the key contribution that the EU can make now is to promote more actively the formation of a Palestinian government of national unity. This presupposes that the EU develops an
internal consensus on the conditions that a new Palestinian government would have to meet.

Until the EU does so – and agrees on its terms for reinstating its border monitoring mission at Rafah – it will lack credibility in the eyes of Palestinians and Israelis. Some EU officials believe that Hamas and Fatah are so reluctant to reconcile that the best hope for unity is to wait for the 2010 national elections. This would be a mistake. Gaza cannot afford to be left isolated for that long with no reconstruction. In addition to the unacceptable cost of human suffering, alienation and radicalisation are likely to thrive, and another war with Israel cannot be excluded. The EU should provide its full support to further immediate Egyptian mediation. It should also consider contributing more actively to the reconciliation talks through envoys or the involvement of third parties. As the largest donor to the Palestinian territories, the EU will be the leading player in the reconstruction effort for Gaza. It is also likely to be involved in monitoring the Gaza-Egyptian border. To facilitate subsequent economic development, the EU must be more proactively involved in the talks.

Finally, as long as a national unity government has not been formed, the EU should ensure that it does not inadvertently contribute to deepening the divisions amongst Palestinians.
Importantly, it should reflect on suspending its work with the Palestinian security forces. The EU’s police mission to the West Bank, EUPOL COPPS, designed to develop Palestinian police forces, is well intentioned. But because of Palestinian divisions, it is currently assisting only those security forces that respond to Fatah. This could have negative long-term
implications, including undermining the already fraught political neutrality of the security forces.

CONCLUSION

The EU is already deeply involved in the Middle East peace process, through its large financial assistance to the Palestinians, its membership of the Quartet, and its various
missions on the ground. But if it wants to maximise the value of its generous assistance, it should try to increase its diplomatic influence.

Europe should move away from the narrow role of benevolent financial provider it has all too often assumed. The US, the EU and other international players, including the Arab League, should seize upon Netanyahu’s conditional acceptance of a two-state solution to push both the Palestinians and the Israelis back to the negotiating table.

Instability in Gaza could worsen at any time. President Abbas’s authority is weak and his Fatah party is in disarray. The large Arab minority in Israel feels increasingly alienated, as
the riots in Akko in October 2008 attest. Meanwhile Hezbollah continues to pose a threat to Israel, while Iran’s growing influence and its nuclear ambitions risk destabilising the whole region. The situation on the ground in the Middle East might not be very conducive for peace talks. But without pressure from outsiders, there is scope for it to get much worse.


Clara Marina O’Donnell is a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform This policy brief has been jointly published with CER and FRIDE, and is republished here with permission.-

By Andrew Tully

Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki has said that Tehran won’t export its partially enriched uranium for further enrichment, as proposed by the United Nations.

Instead, Mottaki told the Iranian news agency ISNA that Iran would accept an exchange of Iran’s lightly enriched nuclear material for more highly processed fuel -- a proposal that would stymie Western efforts to slow down the country’s nuclear program.

Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States have been pushing for a program proposed by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) under which lightly enriched Iranian uranium would be sent to Russia for further enrichment, then sent to France to be turned into fuel rods, before being returned to Iran.

Western analysts estimate that such a program could delay Iran’s suspected nuclear program by at least a year. The West believes that program is aimed at producing nuclear weapons. Iran says it merely wants to generate electricity.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said Washington will accept no alternatives to the UN proposal, which means the United States is now facing a tough decision.

Henry Sokolski is the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, which studies nonproliferation issues. He tells RFE/RL that Iran’s decision leaves the United States with two entirely different options.

"Either we begin to try to sanction them, however ineffectively -- initially -- by ourselves and with a few friends, and hope that we can turn others to our way of seeing things and sanction them even more effectively in time," Sokolski says. "Or we start talking about how we’ll have to let them enrich under slightly more intrusive inspections, which will be totally inadequate to the task of detecting a possible diversion to make bombs."

Another option, Sokolski says, is military action, which he opposes.

Worth The Effort

The problem is that imposing sanctions through the UN may be impossible. In meetings this week in China, US President Barack Obama heard that he can’t rely on Beijing to support sanctions.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has the right to veto any of the body’s resolutions.

As a result, Sokolski says, putting pressure on Iran may take time as the United States tries to persuade other countries to isolate the regime. He argues that such an appraoch would probably be worth the effort, however.

"You’ve got to show that what [the Iranians have] done is not a model for others to follow. You have to put a price on it," Sokolski says. "And so I would say, start with even ineffectual sanctions and improve them.

"Also, I think you need to be clear. You’re not wild about this regime and you would prefer it to go out of business. Does anybody really think you’ll be able to crack the nut of the security threat that Iran presents with this program, with the current people running that place? It just doesn’t sound right. They like what they’re doing. They want to do more of it."

There’s always the possibility of accepting Mottaki’s offer of a fuel swap, but Ivan Oelrich of the Strategic Security Project at the Federation of American Scientists calls that a bad idea.

Oelrich says the United Nations, the United States, and the other countries negotiating with Iran would lose control of the situation if they let Iran continue to ignore international rules on nuclear research.

"Everyone’s gone on record. We’ve drawn all these lines in the sand. So it’s really a question of, no matter what happens now, one side or the other is going to lose face politically, and that’s where we are," Oelrich says.

"And I think that there have been so many cases, both with Iran and North Korea, where the West in general, the United States in particular, has said, ’You can’t do this,’ and then they go ahead and do it -- called our bluff on that. And Obama’s starting to get some heat from that. I don’t think that they can afford to back off."

’Just Isn’t A Plausible Story’

Iran’s stand is implausible, Oelrich says, because it implies that Iran can’t trust either Russia or France to handle its uranium. And yet, he points out, Iran has long and favorable commercial ties with both countries.

"There is nothing wrong with the previous offer. The Iranians and the Russians have long-term business relationships. The Iranians cannot plausibly say to the Russians, ’No, we don’t trust you on that,’ because they trust them with billions of dollars worth of business," Oelrich says.

"Now, the Russian-enriched fuel has to go to France to have the fuel rods constructed. The French aren’t going to be reneging on the Iranians. It just isn’t a plausible story that the Iranians can’t trust France and Russia."

Oelrich says the United States should easily be able to show the world that Iran isn’t merely defending its right to nuclear power but is engaged in a charade. As a result, he says, the only sensible choice for the United States is to say no to Iran.

Oelrich also believes it’s time to revise the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which says all nations have a right to peaceful nuclear energy. He says that right shouldn’t include a country processing its own nuclear fuel.

Instead, Oelrich proposes that the processing of nuclear fuel be internationalized under an agency like the IAEA so that no single country controls any of it. That way, he says, all countries have access to its energy without facing the risk that one or more may secretly develop nuclear weapons.

Copyright (c) 2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. RFE/RL

The most controversial private security company in history emerges in mainstream media yet again - this time with broader implications to its cultural impact.

By Jody Ray Bennett

Early last month, Blackwater Worldwide, the ever infamous private military and security company, was thrust into the commercial media spotlight yet again after its founder was accused of “murder[ing] or facilitat[ing] the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company.”

After weeks of avoiding any sort of meaningful scrutiny, the company again emerged upon revelation in a piece by the New York Times that in 2004, the CIA hired the company to “locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda” in a program that had been concealed from congressional oversight.

It was one of the first known times that US national security was purposefully outsourced to a private company to partake and engage in specialized and covert operations that were once exclusively performed by the government.

A former top Blackwater executive told ISN Security Watch that what was reported was not correct. He re-emphasized the article’s mention that “It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program.”

“Everyone was led to believe there was some force of [Blackwater] guys trained in assassination,” the former Blackwater employee told ISN Security Watch. “It just wasn't an accurate story, and it was way blown out of proportion.”

However, days after this story broke, the New York Times reported that the ubiquitous media stories covering US drone attacks in Pakistan were in part carried out by Blackwater, which had since changed its name to Xe and was sometimes under contract as US Training Center.

According to the report, “The division's operations are carried out at hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company's contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft, work previously performed by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency [while also providing] security at the covert bases.”

The interviewee could not clear the record with ISN Security Watch as the programs remain classified and investigations are still ongoing.

Self-fulfilling prophecy?

The company is still under investigation by various parties and seems to constantly be in court for something.

That the company emerges every so often in the news cycle has caused some journalists to compare it to a game of “Whack-A-Mole” in that it keeps “popping up,” while others have pondered if Blackwater is “too big to fail.”

Blackwater represents the fusion of American neo-realist foreign policy and neo-liberal theories, which maintain that anything can be bought and sold on a private market, including military functions that used to be exclusively owned by the nation-state.

The privatization of military affairs and national security cannot be discussed without mention of Blackwater, which has managed to force itself into the narrative of US-Iraq and US-Afghan relations and beyond. But more than this, the sheer idea of Blackwater has become a politically cultural archetype, which, despite its massive material power and political relationships, has manifested itself in a sort of stereotype, not only to its own detriment but to the detriment of the very industry in which it operates.
One might hesitate to suggest that a discussion of Blackwater (and what Blackwater means for global politics) should be limited to those in military, security, business or even academic circles, but indeed, the company has shaped itself into an epithet that evokes a dubious awe, perplexing fascination and outright suspicion.

For these reasons, the company has managed to be caricatured in several Hollywood films and television shows, it has been the subject of a hard rock song, earned a mention on a late night entertainment program in the US and has been compared to the characters, companies, missions and plots in a litany of video games and other fictional works. In fact, the SWAT series for the Playstation gaming system includes actual footage of Blackwater’s training facilities and commentary from Blackwater-employed SWAT instructors.

A former executive with the company even mentioned to ISN Security Watch that Blackwater once had to send a legal letter to a Chinese toy company that was manufacturing GI Joe-knockoff action figures that bore the Blackwater logo without permission.

When asked about Blackwater’s cultural relevance, the executive told ISN Security Watch that at the time, “we didn’t think anyone in that world knew about us or even cared.”

But the company has clearly created an unintentional cultural impact. During the interview, the former Blackwater official likened the company’s brand to that of ‘Kleenex’ or ‘Fed-Ex’ in the sense that the word ‘Blackwater’ became a ubiquitous reference that spanned the entire security industry.

“[It’s] just like whether you use UPS or DHL, [but say] you ‘fedex’ soemthing,” the official told ISN Security Watch.

Critical security

To what degree have these cultural nuances altered or reinforced how scholars, journalists, soldiers and security personnel perceive the idea of security, let alone collective notions of how security can or should be allocated and what implications or consequences arise as a result of assumptions?

To some extent, these questions are addressed in the many security blogs that can be found online, but few succeed in explaining or critiquing phenomenon in the security world outside of strictly positivist and empirical frameworks.

That songs and movie plots and action figures and video games develop in reaction or response to companies like Blackwater says more about the people who produce and consume these products and less about the “world’s most powerful mercenary army.”

This is not to say that the industry should not be subject to strict scrutiny, but without scrutiny or question of the cultural virtues that seem to develop, the emergence and existence of companies like Blackwater could not be understood outside of the near unanimous, functional explanation of military downsizing in the post-Cold War era.

As news coverage will undoubtedly rise and fall with Blackwater as a subject, might the aforementioned scholars, journalists, soldiers, security personnel and activists entertain for a moment that the idea of Blackwater may be nothing more than the material reflection of the political, economic and social culture from which it was formed?


Jody Ray Bennett is a freelance writer and academic researcher. His areas of analysis include the private military and security industry, the materialization of non-state forces and the transformation of modern warfare. This article was originally published by International Relations and Security Network (ISN).