There is a historically based truism about war--even a very small war hiding behind an euphemistic moniker and a poetic code name. The truism can be summed accurately in a single word: unity. There must be a unity between political goal and military goal. There must be a unity between the goal and what can be termed the "definition of victory." There must be a unity--or at least a tight cohesion--between the definition of victory and the "theory of victory," which is the specific mix of military and non-military means intended to result in victory. Finally, there must be a unity of command so as to assure that all forces employed are marching to the same band.
Unity in all the forms mentioned is critical to war waged by a single power. It is even more critical when the war is undertaken by a coalition.
To date Operation Odyssey Dawn (as the Americans term the effort in Libya) or Operation Ellamy (as the Brits have dubbed it) fails in most of the ways listed above. There is no unity of political goals as between the several coalition members. There is no unity between political and military goal as regards the US. There is no unified definition of victory. Thus, there can be no definition of victory. Nor can there be a unified theory of victory. And, looking forward, the unity of command and common effort is nowhere to be seen.
Operation Odyssey Dawn has been through yesterday a predominately American effort. Nearly two thirds of all sorties have been flown by US aircraft. American planes flew 212 sorties while the British and French as well as other NATO states contributed 124. This trend continued during the past twenty-four hours with the Americans flying 113 sorties and the other twelve coalition partners contributing 63. This is an improvement on the 85 percent Made in America record of a couple of days earlier. The overwhelming majority of the 162 Tomahawk missiles fired were American (the British have fired a dozen or so from a submarine which represents a goodly chunk of the 64 Tomahawks in the British inventory.)
In this respect the operation represents business as usual. Way back when during the days of H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton the no-fly zone was primarily an American effort. The US flew five sorties for every one undertaken by the UK. (The French were not involved at all.) The situation was much the same during the Bosnian affray.
All this "joint" effort has put a lot of hours on the airframes of American aircraft. It would be interesting to know how many hours had accumulated where and when on the F-15E Strike Eagle which crashed in Libya as the result of an "equipment malfunction." The use--perhaps bordering on overuse--may be one reason the US military seems anxious to pass the baton to someone else in Libya.
It is not the only nor even the primary reason the US is looking so eagerly for an early exit from its current leadership role. Leaving aside the motives and their worthiness, the most important consideration is whether or not the American bowing out will help or hinder the gaining of unity in all the forms mentioned.
The primary requirement, the requirement from which all subordinate forms of unity descend, is that of political goal. With respect to Libya this seems to be quite elusive. The French seem to be wedded to an endstate which sees Gaddifi gone. The British have acknowledged they have no exit plan, which implies the absence of a final political goal. The American president has drawn a line between an expansive political goal and a very, very narrow military one. The Germans are opposed to everything which may bring with it the possibility of someone shooting someone. The Turks are likewise inclined. The Arab League is adrift in a sea of confusion bordering on despair.
The upshot of this sorry state of affairs is there is little if any probability of a unified political goal emerging regardless of who or what finally takes over the political direction of the war. With this reality in place at the most foundational level, it almost doesn't matter who runs the actual conduct of daily operations. But, politics guides that as well. The UK with phlegmatic realism understands that NATO has the command and control capacity to run a coalition war. The French and others are against this for the frankly political reason that NATO is Western and as such will alienate the Arab states whose political cover is essential for the effort.
The internal political contradictions and tensions which afflict not only the AL but many of the member states as well prevents the League from adopting and keeping to a unified political goal or even collaborating with non-Arab states in formulating one for the Libyan Question. This reality makes an imitation of the ISAF in Afghanistan a fiction. (Not that the ISAF is a model of unity--consider the risk averse nature of many contributor countries such as Germany whose ROE's virtually prevent firing an angry round.)
When night falls there will be a cobbled together simulacrum of a central political directorate. Command and control of daily, routine operations will devolve to someone, perhaps the French or a joint Anglo-French body, or, just maybe, NATO. The political directorate will not make the hard choices of the what-do-we-do-next? sort of decisions which will be popping up in a very unpretty way shortly. These matters will be kicked back to the national leaders. The notion that the assorted leaders of the main players (which will continue to include the US as only the US has many critical capacities such as enough aircraft) will achieve a consensus on the questions of what-now? is hallucinatory at best.
The yawning gap between President Obama's declaratory policy--"Gaddafi must go"--and the no-American-boots-on-the-ground pledge underscores the impossibility of coming to effective terms with the what-now? genre of questions. The vast differences in motivation among the assorted NATO states which have contributed aircraft of basing facilities further exacerbates the question.
The American stance toward the effort in Libya is epitomized in the quote giving this post its title. Of course this view ignores the vast differences in motives and intents within the "Europeans." Frankly, the effort is the brainchild of France and the UK. This allows the inference that these two should be the political directorate, but such is totally unacceptable to all others.
So the necessary unities will not exist. This redounds to Gaddafi's advantage. The greatest irony in this is simply that should Brother Leader come out of the current fracas still in power, the states with the most to worry about are those of the Arab League. Given Gaddafi's past love affairs with terror groups and the current political tumult in most Arab states, his capacity for mischief is unlimited.
A line from an old Jefferson Airplane song is relevant: "Go away or go all the way in." This is the fundamental dilemma facing the mock coalition in the sky over Libya. The states with the most dogs in the fight are those of the Arab League. The collective and individual unwillingness of these states to address the ground truth in play in Libya right now constitutes a major failure of political will and acumen. In time this failure may well lead to more failed states where Arabic is the language.
Showing posts with label Arab States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arab States. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Is Tunisia The New Paradigm?
Many observers, particularly those who live in the Arab countries of the Mideast, see the overthrow of the aging authoritarian president, Ben Ali, as a sign of things to come in countries such as Egypt, Algeria, even the feudal oil kingdoms of the Gulf. These optimistic folk revel in the apparent success of an unprecedented exercise in "people power."
There are striking but superficial similarities between the social, political, and economic dynamic which brought an end to the quarter century of Ben Ali's reign and those obtaining in other Mideast countries, particularly Egypt. But, as history has so often shown, the differences are far more critical than the appealing similarities.
Ben Ali was only the second chief of state in the fifty plus years of Tunisian independence. His predecessor, Habib Bourguiba, ushered in both independence and a rigid one party state rule. Bourguiba was a realist in his domestic and foreign policy pursuing good relations with the ex-colonial power, France, while insisting on secularization, educational development, and economic progress domestically. His thirty-one year regime provided a sound basis for Tunisia both socially and economically while stunting the country's political growth.
Ben Ali displaced Bourguiba in a non-violent coup in 1987. His early terms in the office of president were distinguished only by his fealty to Bourguiba's visions. However, by the end of his fifteenth year in power, Ben Ali had become increasingly repressive, given to nepotism and familial corruption and evermore remoteness from the people of Tunisia. During terms number four and five, the general distaste for the regime grew apace, but manifestations of discontent were handled readily by the police.
As distaste for the regime grew so also did the wealth of the presidential family including the relatives of his second wife, a nearly illiterate one time beautician. The situation would have remained in stasis had it not been for the impact of the global recession, particularly the hit taken by the large, educated, secularized, and European oriented youth of the country.
Bourguiba had emphasized the control of population growth with excellent results. This insulated Tunisia against the early effects of too much education and too few suitable jobs. However, the global recession upset the delicate balance with results which disproportionately hit the urban under thirty population. In this context it should be mentioned that Tunisia is heavily urbanized with seven out of every ten people living in the cities. Similarly Tunisia boasts an unusually large number of people with a post-secondary education.
In many but not all of these features--urbanization, a precarious balance between population growth and job growth, a significant number of young, educated, and under- or unemployed people, a rigid, one party political dynamic, inefficient, overbearing repression by police, corruption and nepotism at the highest level of government, maldistribution of wealth--Tunisia is closely resembled by Egypt, Algeria, and the Gulf states. The same is true to a slightly lesser degree with respect to Jordan, Libya, and Syria.
None of this should be taken to imply that Hosni Mubarak is soon to go the way of Ben Ali. The reason is to be found in the differences between Tunisia and the other Arab states. Most of the critical differences are matters of degree rather than substance. For example, Tunisia's population has a higher percentage of recipients of post-secondary education than the other countries in the region. The average family size in Tunisia--an important consideration when evaluating the potential for political involvement by youth--is smaller than in the other Arab states. The percentage of urbanites is larger. The percentage of under-thirties with direct experience living in Europe is larger. In short, the population of Tunisia is disproportionately educated, urban, technologically savvy, literate, and comes from a childhood of relative privilege.
Other differences are structural. Tunisia has a small and non-politicized army. While the police are more political than not, the army sat--and continues to sit--on the sidelines. Its high command refused to suppress the escalating demonstrations/riots. This was critical to the decision by the president to leave and the prime minister to step aside in favor of the legislative speaker. Also structural is the matter of religion. Tunisia is Muslim to be sure, but it is a country in which the seeds of violent political Islam or even the purportedly non-violent sort peddled by the Muslim Brotherhood have never been allowed to take root.
The act which triggered the final month of escalating unrest is quite atypical for an Arab/Muslim state and society but quite emblematic of Tunisia's uniqueness. The event was the public self-immolation of a twenty-six year old university graduate who was forced to support himself as a fruit and vegetable peddler. After being hassled by the police for having no license, Mohamad Bouazizi, took his own life in the same attention demanding way as did the famed Buddhist monks of South Vietnam fifty years ago--he doused himself with gasoline and struck a match.
Some Muslim clerics along with government spokesmen condemned Bouazizi's suicide as "non-Islamic." This attempt at marginalization was unsuccessful to say the least. It can be argued that the condemnation offered by Muslim clerics deligitimized any Islamist message. Because of the widespread use of Internet, SMS, and other horizontal means of communication the death of Mr Bouazizi had an impact far from the small town of Sidi Bouzid.
Unemployed graduates were joined by urban workers and others in demonstrations and riots publicized by SMS and social networking sites in a manner redolent of raves and flash crowds. The demonstrators were never effectively and efficiently repressed by the police. It is important to note that the Tunisian organs of internal security were not and never have been efficiently repressive. They could oppress but never gain the unchallenged upper hand which provides the necessary suppression of opposition. In short, the police could repress enough to be counterproductive but not enough to be suppressive. That has always been the worst case for an authoritarian regime.
In this very critical way then Tunisia is at a distance from countries such as Egypt. Hosni Mubarak has a very efficient set of repressive instruments at his disposal including the army. The same is true with other regimes which superficially resemble the old government in Tunisia. Not to put too sharp a point on the matter, all the other potentially threatened governments have both the will and the ability to drown the opposition in blood.
It must never be forgotten that other countries from Algeria to Egypt and beyond have strong groups adhering to violent political Islam. This means the usually more secular folks who would constitute a "people power" opposition would not have the field to themselves but would face Islamists as well as the status quo government and its supporting elites.
Putting together the similarities and differences leads to one conclusion: The events of the past month and days in Tunisia do not constitute a new paradigm for other societies and polities in the Arab Mideast. While it would be very nice if the contrary were the case, the probability of any other authoritarian regime in the region being toppled in a manner akin to the downfall of Ben Ali is very slim to none.
Still there is a lesson here for the Deep Thinkers of the current administration. It would behoove the US and other Western states including former colonial powers to take a long hard look at the possibilities for assisting "people power" movements in the region. The neocon ninnies of the Bush/Cheney administration were right in pushing for democracy in the Arab states even if they were dead wrong in their belief that armed exercises in coerced regime change constituted the best means to foster democracy. Working with nascent or incipient "people power" movements, even or especially those of the "leaderless" sort constitutes a far, far better way.
There are striking but superficial similarities between the social, political, and economic dynamic which brought an end to the quarter century of Ben Ali's reign and those obtaining in other Mideast countries, particularly Egypt. But, as history has so often shown, the differences are far more critical than the appealing similarities.
Ben Ali was only the second chief of state in the fifty plus years of Tunisian independence. His predecessor, Habib Bourguiba, ushered in both independence and a rigid one party state rule. Bourguiba was a realist in his domestic and foreign policy pursuing good relations with the ex-colonial power, France, while insisting on secularization, educational development, and economic progress domestically. His thirty-one year regime provided a sound basis for Tunisia both socially and economically while stunting the country's political growth.
Ben Ali displaced Bourguiba in a non-violent coup in 1987. His early terms in the office of president were distinguished only by his fealty to Bourguiba's visions. However, by the end of his fifteenth year in power, Ben Ali had become increasingly repressive, given to nepotism and familial corruption and evermore remoteness from the people of Tunisia. During terms number four and five, the general distaste for the regime grew apace, but manifestations of discontent were handled readily by the police.
As distaste for the regime grew so also did the wealth of the presidential family including the relatives of his second wife, a nearly illiterate one time beautician. The situation would have remained in stasis had it not been for the impact of the global recession, particularly the hit taken by the large, educated, secularized, and European oriented youth of the country.
Bourguiba had emphasized the control of population growth with excellent results. This insulated Tunisia against the early effects of too much education and too few suitable jobs. However, the global recession upset the delicate balance with results which disproportionately hit the urban under thirty population. In this context it should be mentioned that Tunisia is heavily urbanized with seven out of every ten people living in the cities. Similarly Tunisia boasts an unusually large number of people with a post-secondary education.
In many but not all of these features--urbanization, a precarious balance between population growth and job growth, a significant number of young, educated, and under- or unemployed people, a rigid, one party political dynamic, inefficient, overbearing repression by police, corruption and nepotism at the highest level of government, maldistribution of wealth--Tunisia is closely resembled by Egypt, Algeria, and the Gulf states. The same is true to a slightly lesser degree with respect to Jordan, Libya, and Syria.
None of this should be taken to imply that Hosni Mubarak is soon to go the way of Ben Ali. The reason is to be found in the differences between Tunisia and the other Arab states. Most of the critical differences are matters of degree rather than substance. For example, Tunisia's population has a higher percentage of recipients of post-secondary education than the other countries in the region. The average family size in Tunisia--an important consideration when evaluating the potential for political involvement by youth--is smaller than in the other Arab states. The percentage of urbanites is larger. The percentage of under-thirties with direct experience living in Europe is larger. In short, the population of Tunisia is disproportionately educated, urban, technologically savvy, literate, and comes from a childhood of relative privilege.
Other differences are structural. Tunisia has a small and non-politicized army. While the police are more political than not, the army sat--and continues to sit--on the sidelines. Its high command refused to suppress the escalating demonstrations/riots. This was critical to the decision by the president to leave and the prime minister to step aside in favor of the legislative speaker. Also structural is the matter of religion. Tunisia is Muslim to be sure, but it is a country in which the seeds of violent political Islam or even the purportedly non-violent sort peddled by the Muslim Brotherhood have never been allowed to take root.
The act which triggered the final month of escalating unrest is quite atypical for an Arab/Muslim state and society but quite emblematic of Tunisia's uniqueness. The event was the public self-immolation of a twenty-six year old university graduate who was forced to support himself as a fruit and vegetable peddler. After being hassled by the police for having no license, Mohamad Bouazizi, took his own life in the same attention demanding way as did the famed Buddhist monks of South Vietnam fifty years ago--he doused himself with gasoline and struck a match.
Some Muslim clerics along with government spokesmen condemned Bouazizi's suicide as "non-Islamic." This attempt at marginalization was unsuccessful to say the least. It can be argued that the condemnation offered by Muslim clerics deligitimized any Islamist message. Because of the widespread use of Internet, SMS, and other horizontal means of communication the death of Mr Bouazizi had an impact far from the small town of Sidi Bouzid.
Unemployed graduates were joined by urban workers and others in demonstrations and riots publicized by SMS and social networking sites in a manner redolent of raves and flash crowds. The demonstrators were never effectively and efficiently repressed by the police. It is important to note that the Tunisian organs of internal security were not and never have been efficiently repressive. They could oppress but never gain the unchallenged upper hand which provides the necessary suppression of opposition. In short, the police could repress enough to be counterproductive but not enough to be suppressive. That has always been the worst case for an authoritarian regime.
In this very critical way then Tunisia is at a distance from countries such as Egypt. Hosni Mubarak has a very efficient set of repressive instruments at his disposal including the army. The same is true with other regimes which superficially resemble the old government in Tunisia. Not to put too sharp a point on the matter, all the other potentially threatened governments have both the will and the ability to drown the opposition in blood.
It must never be forgotten that other countries from Algeria to Egypt and beyond have strong groups adhering to violent political Islam. This means the usually more secular folks who would constitute a "people power" opposition would not have the field to themselves but would face Islamists as well as the status quo government and its supporting elites.
Putting together the similarities and differences leads to one conclusion: The events of the past month and days in Tunisia do not constitute a new paradigm for other societies and polities in the Arab Mideast. While it would be very nice if the contrary were the case, the probability of any other authoritarian regime in the region being toppled in a manner akin to the downfall of Ben Ali is very slim to none.
Still there is a lesson here for the Deep Thinkers of the current administration. It would behoove the US and other Western states including former colonial powers to take a long hard look at the possibilities for assisting "people power" movements in the region. The neocon ninnies of the Bush/Cheney administration were right in pushing for democracy in the Arab states even if they were dead wrong in their belief that armed exercises in coerced regime change constituted the best means to foster democracy. Working with nascent or incipient "people power" movements, even or especially those of the "leaderless" sort constitutes a far, far better way.
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