Yesterday South Sudan became the 196th independent sovereign state on Earth. The raising of the new national flag was the result of intensive diplomatic efforts on the part of the US and UK to end a twenty year long defensive insurgency which pitted the primarily African, Christian south against the overwhelmingly Arab, Muslim north. The post war road to independence has been long--six years--and filled with still unresolved difficulties such as the division of oil revenues and the status of disputed territory.
The most interesting aspect of the MSM coverage of the independence celebration in Juba, the capital, has been the recitation of a seemingly unending litany of problems confronting the place. Mention is made of the poverty, the lack of education, the feuds which separate the leaders of the new government, the lack of infrastructure, lack of jobs, lack of medical care, lack of almost everything other than oil and fertile land. Learned tongues cluck over the inexperience of the governmental personnel at all levels. There is head shaking over the hostility still resident in Khartoum along with dire hints that the matter is not yet permanently settled.
Of course much mention is made of the international assistance which will be coming. The British foreign minister has promised much. The US is not far behind. China, with an eye firmly on the source of the oil of Sudan, has indicated it will be inclined to be generous. Then, of course, the NGO industry has already cranked up its not inconsiderable resources--most importantly its public relations and lobbying capabilities. One gets the impression that donors almost beyond count are lining up hoping to toss some money in the general direction of Juba.
Looking at the mixture of hand-wringing and calls for as well as assurance of aid in abundance, one cannot help but think of the US at the time of its foundation. It matters not which date is selected--that of the Declaration of Independence, the surrender of the British at Yorktown, the signing of the final treaty, or the adoption of the Constitution--the picture was much the same. The birth of the US, the period from the first shootout at Lexington to the adoption of the Constitution, was a prolonged and painful process lasting the best part of two decades. At no time would the smart money placed a bet on the success of the Americans.
The US was massively underdeveloped. It had no industry. Its only exports were agricultural products and naval stores. And, the export market for these had been constricted by British action after independence had been gained. The Americans were riven with internal divisions, not least of which was the split between states where slavery was commonplace and those where it was nonexistent. The US was broke. The circulating media were so worthless and specie (gold and silver) so lacking that barter was normal.
The American government was composed in the main of former insurgent fighters with little if any actual governmental experience. The many strong personalities often clashed in contests of ego and ideology. Corruption was rampant as is illustrated by the traffic by speculators in the land warrants used by states and Congress in lieu of pay for the men of the Continental Army.
The British had only partially and grudgingly acknowledged defeat when they signed the treaty ending the war. In the aftermath London did not live up to its obligations under the treaty particularly as regarded the evacuation of military posts on the upper Great Lakes. Together with their trade policy, this failure to abide by the requirements of the treaty indicated the British expected American independence to be transitory. As if that hostility was insufficient, the French occupied the Mississippi Valley and showed no sign of leaving. The Spanish from their colonial outpost in Florida schemed with Americans of doubtful loyalty to the new country to pry loose the territories of the old southwest and attach it to Madrid.
The American population was small in comparison to the land. Medical care was absent outside the handful of major cities (more like large villages than true cities) and often inept even where it existed. While Americans were notably literate by the standards of the day, the overall rate of literacy was not much better than the twenty-five percent reported for South Sudan. And, despite the agrarian nature of most of the US, hunger was far from absent given the lack of a circulating medium of constant value as well as problems with transportation stemming from the very limited and rudimentary infrastructure of the period.
There were no international donors lining up to toss money at the US. No NGO took up the American plight as the poster cause of the moment. No UN, no WHO, no WFP stood by eager to provide whatever humanitarian assistance might be needed. At best, the world was massively indifferent to whether or not the US survived and prospered. More than a few European states rather hoped that this radical experiment in democracy would sputter and die--the sooner the better.
The US and We the People were very much on our own. For the Americans of the independence period it was, to use a phrase of the day, a matter of "root, hog, or die." We would have to solve our internal frictions. We would have to pay our debts. We would have to create a government. Create a currency. Create an economy and the jobs which would come with it. We, and only we, would have the duty and privilege of creating a country with a future--or not.
Arguably, the root of our success is not to be found in some sort of unique ability on the part of the leaders of the period. Nor, it can be shown, was the success attributable to an act of divine providence. The American success in all its fits, starts, blind alleys, and failures was simply the consequence of having no choice other than national extinction.
As the prospect of being hung in two weeks reputedly has the effect of concentrating the mind most wonderfully so also does the ever-present prospect of national death concentrate the efforts and will of many, many people. The Americans chose to root rather than die.
The first two generations of independent existence were neither easy nor, in retrospect, pretty. The challenges were many and great. The failures of were plentiful. Many individuals in positions of power acted in the most petty and self-serving ways imaginable. It was a magnificent muddle with no light at the end of the tunnel until after the second war of independence ended in 1815. After that, while much remained to do if the American experiment were to prosper, its survival was almost certain.
Perhaps it is most unfortunate that South Sudan will be denied the chance to make it on its own merits. It may be regrettable that the South Sudanese will not be faced with the stark choice of "root or die." Arguably, the laudable humanitarian impulses which motivate at least some of the offers of aid and assistance will be the cause of a moral dry rot which will sap the political will and energies of the South Sudanese to make a genuine go of it as a sovereign state with a unique national identity.
As the current situation in South Sudan is considered, it is worth remembering that every rich, powerful, and successful state in the world today was once no better off than is South Sudan. Every last member of the G-8 or even the G-20 was as internally riven, as poor, as lacking in infrastructure, education, jobs as is South Sudan. It is worth considering how each made it from that sort of dire beginning to their status today. One commonality is the absence of external assistance. Another is that success came only with time, difficulty, and the painful development of internal consensus on what to do and how to do it as well as putting that consensus into practice with genuine structures created organically and not in response to some outside "experts" opinion and advice.
Parents in their understandable desire to save children from pain and mistakes often forget how much they learned by failing, by making bad choices, by having to decide in microcosm to "root" rather than "die." The same is true in spades when developed, successful states contemplate a new arrival in the international community.
Helicopter moms and dads often discover too late that their constant hovering has done more harm than good to the capacity of their children to fly free and alone in a hostile or at least indifferent world. Perhaps it is time that helicopter states and NGOs including international organizations learn the same. Whether hogs or states, not all root successfully. Some die.
Showing posts with label South Sudan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Sudan. Show all posts
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
One More Time--UN "Peacekeepers" Can't Keep The Peace
The Geek has been a harsh critic of UN peace keeping operations most of the past thirty or so years. While there have been some exceptions, the general rule is simply that the blue helmet crowd is not worth a fraction of what it costs the UN, which is to say the American taxpayer.
One more splendid example of the common rule comes from Sudan. You might recall that after forces from South Sudan ambushed a UN aid convoy protected by units of the Khartoum army, the northerners responded by an attack on the contested border town of Abyei. The incursion and concomitant looting and burning lasted two days during which thousands of residents hit the dust for points south. During the festivities, the UN peace keeping force drawn from the army of Zambia hunkered down in its dug in compound, heads between their no doubt quavering knees.
This aspect of the story was widely, one is tempted to write "universally" ignored by the MSM of the world. An honorable and lonely exception was Reuters Africa whose correspondent investigated this neglect of duty with a fine degree of assiduousness. The article notes in several places that the UN is both "livid" and is "investigating" the incident. The Zambian mission to the UN had no comment. Wow! What a shock.
This is not the first time that the Zambian contingent has determined that discretion was the better part of valor. Nor is it likely to be the last.
The Abyei fiasco is typical of UN peace keeping operations in Africa. In the Congo the blue helmet bunch has been recurrently unable to furnish protection to local civilians besieged, raped, and murdered by one or another of the assorted "rebel" groups. This has been true even when the UN outpost has been within easy earshot of the rapine. Nor was the performance of peacekeeping force notably better elsewhere from the Ivory Coast to points east.
The usual reasons given for the under performing nature of the peacekeepers is that they are drawn in the main from the poorest of the poor undeveloped countries. Thus the personnel are underpaid, undertrained (if trained at all) under equipped (if equipped at all) and very, very poorly officered. All of this is true. It is also irrelevant.
There is no explicit requirement that the UN peacekeeping office use forces of this nature. Rather, these are the only forces generally available. More developed countries with professional armies seem to be reluctant in the extreme to deploy in the service of humanity. There are normally valid domestic political imperatives behind this stance.
(Arguably even the presence of a Western professional army is no guarantee of success. Recall that the small Dutch contingent present at Srebrenica as Ratko Mladic demanded the handover of all Muslim males could not offer resistance, and their request for air support was ineffective as it was submitted on the wrong form. The result was eight thousand Muslim dead.)
The notion of peacekeeping is flawed in several essential respects. The first is the requirement that peace already exist--at least in principle--before the blue helmet boys arrive to maintain it. There is no writ for the UN force to impose peace and then keep it. The second is the need for the government of the recipient country to request or approve the UN move. In the context of Sudan the offer of Ethiopia to provide additional peacekeeping troops is contingent upon both Khartoum and Juba signing off on the proposal. Thirdly, the peacekeeping forces are almost always too small and too lightly armed to intimidate effectively any and all locals inclined to fighting.
The final flaw is the one demonstrated by the Zambians at Abyei. There is no real stomach for the idea of getting killed in the middle of someone else's war for the abstract of "peace." This is a very commonsense approach. It is bad enough to risk one's only skin in a conflict in which one's nation has a direct stake and in which one fights under one's own national command. It is far less appealing to die for someone else's notions of peace or victory. For societies and polities barely beyond the tribal stage of abstract loyalties (if that far along the continuum of political abstraction), the desire not to die in a truly meaningless conflict is all the more potent.
For a Zambian or anyone else from any country, there is no inbuilt loyalty to the supreme abstractions expressed in the UN. Dying under the baby blue banner has no appeal, brings no glory, has no intrinsic reward potential. When the bullets are flying, the best thing to do is what the Zambians did--dig a deep hole and stay there until the noise ceases.
The lofty thinkers behind the concept of the UN as a peacekeeper in the violent internal affairs of a state and nation which are, at least in theory, sovereign and independent, need to get a grip on the realities as perceived through the eyes of men sent far from home for little material reward to risk themselves in pursuit of something which is utterly meaningless to them. If the lofty thinking, high minded people at the UN are serious about the notion of armed intervention in the bloody internal politics of a state or establishing an armed presence on the line dividing two combatant states, they need to stop outsourcing the duty to the unfortunate poverty ridden lesser states of the General Assembly--even when these states are eager for the "honor"of doing the dirty work.
Peacekeeping is a form of mercenary warfare. Period. This means the forces employed must be heavily armed enough and well disciplined enough to overawe the local combatants. Overawing means the probability of actual shooting and dying is reduced. A clear superiority in the task of killing means killing will be less likely. Beyond that, it means that should the locals not stay properly impressed, the peacekeepers will have the ability to kill without being killed.
This approach would be more expensive to the UN (or the US which is the single largest financial supporter of these missions). It also means the forces will have to be drawn from the most militarily competent members of the UN, the Great and Near Great Powers. This, in turn, will open a very large box of political problems for the leaders of these Powers (with the exception of authoritarian regimes--and we all know who these are). The political problems will in their turn make the Powers a bit more reluctant and circumspect in their handling of interventions under the blue flag.
An increase in reluctance would not be a bad idea. While the notion and optics of internal violence or border skirmishes with clouds of emotionally appealing refugees is disconcerting, the bitter reality of the utility of both the violence and its consequences must be recognized. The problems which produced the violence will not be settled by outside intervention, foreign interference. They may be tamped down, made less visible, but they will still exist to be dealt with by future violence of an increased nature. All peacekeeping efforts accomplish much of the time is kicking the can down the road.
It would be far better in the long term for the violence to produce a solution to the problem as contrary to the cliche so loved by the lofty thinking sort, violence does settle problems. History is replete with examples. It is also filled with examples of how prematurely truncated violence breeds a further outbreak of even bloodier violence.
The world was not produced by Walt Disney. Nor is the human race given to peace, love, and flower power. Political and social evolution is often propelled by suffering and dying, by instability and conflict. The sensitive sort of person might wish it were otherwise, but the dreary history of the human race at least since we left the Eden of hunting and gathering shows the opposite to be the case. Organized social and political life is characterized by redness of tooth and claw.
Nature is far more gentle and kind creature than is the human. Get a grip on it.
One more splendid example of the common rule comes from Sudan. You might recall that after forces from South Sudan ambushed a UN aid convoy protected by units of the Khartoum army, the northerners responded by an attack on the contested border town of Abyei. The incursion and concomitant looting and burning lasted two days during which thousands of residents hit the dust for points south. During the festivities, the UN peace keeping force drawn from the army of Zambia hunkered down in its dug in compound, heads between their no doubt quavering knees.
This aspect of the story was widely, one is tempted to write "universally" ignored by the MSM of the world. An honorable and lonely exception was Reuters Africa whose correspondent investigated this neglect of duty with a fine degree of assiduousness. The article notes in several places that the UN is both "livid" and is "investigating" the incident. The Zambian mission to the UN had no comment. Wow! What a shock.
This is not the first time that the Zambian contingent has determined that discretion was the better part of valor. Nor is it likely to be the last.
The Abyei fiasco is typical of UN peace keeping operations in Africa. In the Congo the blue helmet bunch has been recurrently unable to furnish protection to local civilians besieged, raped, and murdered by one or another of the assorted "rebel" groups. This has been true even when the UN outpost has been within easy earshot of the rapine. Nor was the performance of peacekeeping force notably better elsewhere from the Ivory Coast to points east.
The usual reasons given for the under performing nature of the peacekeepers is that they are drawn in the main from the poorest of the poor undeveloped countries. Thus the personnel are underpaid, undertrained (if trained at all) under equipped (if equipped at all) and very, very poorly officered. All of this is true. It is also irrelevant.
There is no explicit requirement that the UN peacekeeping office use forces of this nature. Rather, these are the only forces generally available. More developed countries with professional armies seem to be reluctant in the extreme to deploy in the service of humanity. There are normally valid domestic political imperatives behind this stance.
(Arguably even the presence of a Western professional army is no guarantee of success. Recall that the small Dutch contingent present at Srebrenica as Ratko Mladic demanded the handover of all Muslim males could not offer resistance, and their request for air support was ineffective as it was submitted on the wrong form. The result was eight thousand Muslim dead.)
The notion of peacekeeping is flawed in several essential respects. The first is the requirement that peace already exist--at least in principle--before the blue helmet boys arrive to maintain it. There is no writ for the UN force to impose peace and then keep it. The second is the need for the government of the recipient country to request or approve the UN move. In the context of Sudan the offer of Ethiopia to provide additional peacekeeping troops is contingent upon both Khartoum and Juba signing off on the proposal. Thirdly, the peacekeeping forces are almost always too small and too lightly armed to intimidate effectively any and all locals inclined to fighting.
The final flaw is the one demonstrated by the Zambians at Abyei. There is no real stomach for the idea of getting killed in the middle of someone else's war for the abstract of "peace." This is a very commonsense approach. It is bad enough to risk one's only skin in a conflict in which one's nation has a direct stake and in which one fights under one's own national command. It is far less appealing to die for someone else's notions of peace or victory. For societies and polities barely beyond the tribal stage of abstract loyalties (if that far along the continuum of political abstraction), the desire not to die in a truly meaningless conflict is all the more potent.
For a Zambian or anyone else from any country, there is no inbuilt loyalty to the supreme abstractions expressed in the UN. Dying under the baby blue banner has no appeal, brings no glory, has no intrinsic reward potential. When the bullets are flying, the best thing to do is what the Zambians did--dig a deep hole and stay there until the noise ceases.
The lofty thinkers behind the concept of the UN as a peacekeeper in the violent internal affairs of a state and nation which are, at least in theory, sovereign and independent, need to get a grip on the realities as perceived through the eyes of men sent far from home for little material reward to risk themselves in pursuit of something which is utterly meaningless to them. If the lofty thinking, high minded people at the UN are serious about the notion of armed intervention in the bloody internal politics of a state or establishing an armed presence on the line dividing two combatant states, they need to stop outsourcing the duty to the unfortunate poverty ridden lesser states of the General Assembly--even when these states are eager for the "honor"of doing the dirty work.
Peacekeeping is a form of mercenary warfare. Period. This means the forces employed must be heavily armed enough and well disciplined enough to overawe the local combatants. Overawing means the probability of actual shooting and dying is reduced. A clear superiority in the task of killing means killing will be less likely. Beyond that, it means that should the locals not stay properly impressed, the peacekeepers will have the ability to kill without being killed.
This approach would be more expensive to the UN (or the US which is the single largest financial supporter of these missions). It also means the forces will have to be drawn from the most militarily competent members of the UN, the Great and Near Great Powers. This, in turn, will open a very large box of political problems for the leaders of these Powers (with the exception of authoritarian regimes--and we all know who these are). The political problems will in their turn make the Powers a bit more reluctant and circumspect in their handling of interventions under the blue flag.
An increase in reluctance would not be a bad idea. While the notion and optics of internal violence or border skirmishes with clouds of emotionally appealing refugees is disconcerting, the bitter reality of the utility of both the violence and its consequences must be recognized. The problems which produced the violence will not be settled by outside intervention, foreign interference. They may be tamped down, made less visible, but they will still exist to be dealt with by future violence of an increased nature. All peacekeeping efforts accomplish much of the time is kicking the can down the road.
It would be far better in the long term for the violence to produce a solution to the problem as contrary to the cliche so loved by the lofty thinking sort, violence does settle problems. History is replete with examples. It is also filled with examples of how prematurely truncated violence breeds a further outbreak of even bloodier violence.
The world was not produced by Walt Disney. Nor is the human race given to peace, love, and flower power. Political and social evolution is often propelled by suffering and dying, by instability and conflict. The sensitive sort of person might wish it were otherwise, but the dreary history of the human race at least since we left the Eden of hunting and gathering shows the opposite to be the case. Organized social and political life is characterized by redness of tooth and claw.
Nature is far more gentle and kind creature than is the human. Get a grip on it.
Monday, May 23, 2011
What A Great Day!
This is one of those days which makes a guy glad to be alive--that is if he is a maven of how much can go wrong in the world all at the same time. So much has gone so terribly out of whack in the past twenty-four or so hours that is hard to decide what most tickles the brain, that is, what deserves the virtual ink.
It is quite tempting to take a few shots at that LST (large slow target) named "Pakistan." It is a hoot and a half to contemplate that less than a couple of dozen Mighty Warriors Of The One True Faith can take over a major naval air installation. That these Glorious Fighters Of The Koran can hold off assorted Pakistani military forces for seventeen hours, destroying a pair of P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, gifts of the American people delivered only last June, in the process.
Not since a similar commando unit hit and held the Pakistani army's headquarters a couple of years ago has the Islamic Republic been so humiliated. It is presumed that the Great Strategists of Islamabad are down on their prayer rugs giving thanks to the deity that the Taliban trigger-pullers did not hit a certain facility only ten klicks over, conveniently adjacent to an airbase where nuclear weapons are stored. For such small favors, the Pakistanis should give great and prolonged thanks.
For the rest of us, the Taliban raid raises the long standing questions regarding the security of Pakistan's arsenal of one hundred or so nukes to new heights. After all, the night squad which cut its way through a pair of barbed wire fences and used low tech ladders to scale a wall were not in the same league as the men of Boat Six of Great Abbottabad Raid fame. If a handful of jihadists with nothing more sophisticated than RPGs, AKs, and a willingness to die could storm the heavily guarded naval airfield, is it impossible for a similar group to do the same at either a nuclear weapons depot or manufacturing facility?
On the upside, such muscular measures might not be needful given the omnipresence of ideological soulmates within the Pakistani military and intelligence services. Or the direct method might be obviated by the Pakistani version of the hoary Mexican approach of "silver or lead." It is not unthinkable, considering the prevalence of corruption in the Islamic Republic, that the promise of silver might trump the threat of lead.
On another continent, the ardent observer of frothing wars and failing states must feel a pleasant glow contemplating the attack over the weekend by Sudanese forces on the contested oil center of Abyei. The Khartoum regime has maintained with a straight face that its attack complete with air strikes and armored units was "retaliation" for the ambush last week of a UN convoy escorted by Sudanese army personnel. To the not yet officially independent state of South Sudan, the occupation of Abyei constituted an act of war.
Abyei was supposed to have voted as to which side it would join--Sudan or South Sudan--at the same time as the overall referendum on Southern independence. This did not occur because Khartoum insisted on including a nomadic tribe of Muslim affiliation among those franchised to vote in the election. This demand was vetoed by the southerners. As a result, the Abyei question has not been settled. Nor is it likely to be settled by means other than the violent.
The UN has done the expected--denounce the attack and demand Khartoum withdraw its forces. Assorted advocates for South Sudan (mainly George Clooney and assorted NGOs) are making predictable noises regarding the US and UK doing something to compel Khartoum to back down. And, to insure the decibel level of rhetoric is high enough, spokesmen for South Sudan are warning darkly that the occupation of Abyei bodes well to restart the war between South and North which ended in 2005 after twenty-two years and hundreds of thousands of lives due to the diplomacy of the US and UK.
Just what the US or UK can do short of using highly kinetic coercive diplomacy to gain Khartoum's adherence to our policy requirements is unclear. What is clear is that neither Washington nor London are in any hurry to send warplanes or troops anywhere beyond current theaters of operation.
The upcoming meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron has some potential for both sparks and amusement. The two leaders are not in perfect tandem regarding what is being done in Libya to say nothing of what should be done. The British and French are all in favor of more hairy chested efforts than those made to date. In earnest of this intent, both have announced the deployment of helicopter gunships to the country. The British will operate Apaches and the French machines of local manufacture from carriers in the Mediterranean.
Both states (the British more vocally) want the US to come back to Libya in a larger and more noise producing way than has been the case in recent weeks. The redeployment of American A-10 and AC-130 aircraft is much desired by Whitehall. While more muted in their stance, there is little doubt that M. Sarkozy's government would be very happy to see the weight of the US more heavily on the scales in favor of the rebels.
There is no indication that President Obama is in a mood to honor the requests. Certainly, there is no evident pawing of the ground in favor of more and more high profile operations visible at the Pentagon.
This contretemps gives added importance to a little noticed event scheduled to occur during the Obama-Cameron meeting. Reportedly the US and UK will establish a joint national security entity which will coordinate the perceptions and plans of the two countries to allow more effective joint and combined actions globally. Considering the negative view held by Mr Obama regarding the "special relationship" between the UK and US, this is a surprising development. If the reports are confirmed by events, it is a most welcome one as well.
While such a joint body may easily be nothing more than a pro forma exercise in policy futility, there is some chance that it will evolve into a genuine mechanism for meshing together the national security strategies and programs of two natural allies. It might even point in the direction of growing to include several UK descended states--Australia, New Zealand, Canada and India--along with the US and UK into a tightly integrated political/military bloc which would be virtually unchallengeable in years to come.
Now, that sort of "international community" is one which is very pleasant to contemplate. It gives the Geek a warm feeling and, being a sensitive sort of guy, he will end this post on this potentially very high note.
It is quite tempting to take a few shots at that LST (large slow target) named "Pakistan." It is a hoot and a half to contemplate that less than a couple of dozen Mighty Warriors Of The One True Faith can take over a major naval air installation. That these Glorious Fighters Of The Koran can hold off assorted Pakistani military forces for seventeen hours, destroying a pair of P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, gifts of the American people delivered only last June, in the process.
Not since a similar commando unit hit and held the Pakistani army's headquarters a couple of years ago has the Islamic Republic been so humiliated. It is presumed that the Great Strategists of Islamabad are down on their prayer rugs giving thanks to the deity that the Taliban trigger-pullers did not hit a certain facility only ten klicks over, conveniently adjacent to an airbase where nuclear weapons are stored. For such small favors, the Pakistanis should give great and prolonged thanks.
For the rest of us, the Taliban raid raises the long standing questions regarding the security of Pakistan's arsenal of one hundred or so nukes to new heights. After all, the night squad which cut its way through a pair of barbed wire fences and used low tech ladders to scale a wall were not in the same league as the men of Boat Six of Great Abbottabad Raid fame. If a handful of jihadists with nothing more sophisticated than RPGs, AKs, and a willingness to die could storm the heavily guarded naval airfield, is it impossible for a similar group to do the same at either a nuclear weapons depot or manufacturing facility?
On the upside, such muscular measures might not be needful given the omnipresence of ideological soulmates within the Pakistani military and intelligence services. Or the direct method might be obviated by the Pakistani version of the hoary Mexican approach of "silver or lead." It is not unthinkable, considering the prevalence of corruption in the Islamic Republic, that the promise of silver might trump the threat of lead.
On another continent, the ardent observer of frothing wars and failing states must feel a pleasant glow contemplating the attack over the weekend by Sudanese forces on the contested oil center of Abyei. The Khartoum regime has maintained with a straight face that its attack complete with air strikes and armored units was "retaliation" for the ambush last week of a UN convoy escorted by Sudanese army personnel. To the not yet officially independent state of South Sudan, the occupation of Abyei constituted an act of war.
Abyei was supposed to have voted as to which side it would join--Sudan or South Sudan--at the same time as the overall referendum on Southern independence. This did not occur because Khartoum insisted on including a nomadic tribe of Muslim affiliation among those franchised to vote in the election. This demand was vetoed by the southerners. As a result, the Abyei question has not been settled. Nor is it likely to be settled by means other than the violent.
The UN has done the expected--denounce the attack and demand Khartoum withdraw its forces. Assorted advocates for South Sudan (mainly George Clooney and assorted NGOs) are making predictable noises regarding the US and UK doing something to compel Khartoum to back down. And, to insure the decibel level of rhetoric is high enough, spokesmen for South Sudan are warning darkly that the occupation of Abyei bodes well to restart the war between South and North which ended in 2005 after twenty-two years and hundreds of thousands of lives due to the diplomacy of the US and UK.
Just what the US or UK can do short of using highly kinetic coercive diplomacy to gain Khartoum's adherence to our policy requirements is unclear. What is clear is that neither Washington nor London are in any hurry to send warplanes or troops anywhere beyond current theaters of operation.
The upcoming meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron has some potential for both sparks and amusement. The two leaders are not in perfect tandem regarding what is being done in Libya to say nothing of what should be done. The British and French are all in favor of more hairy chested efforts than those made to date. In earnest of this intent, both have announced the deployment of helicopter gunships to the country. The British will operate Apaches and the French machines of local manufacture from carriers in the Mediterranean.
Both states (the British more vocally) want the US to come back to Libya in a larger and more noise producing way than has been the case in recent weeks. The redeployment of American A-10 and AC-130 aircraft is much desired by Whitehall. While more muted in their stance, there is little doubt that M. Sarkozy's government would be very happy to see the weight of the US more heavily on the scales in favor of the rebels.
There is no indication that President Obama is in a mood to honor the requests. Certainly, there is no evident pawing of the ground in favor of more and more high profile operations visible at the Pentagon.
This contretemps gives added importance to a little noticed event scheduled to occur during the Obama-Cameron meeting. Reportedly the US and UK will establish a joint national security entity which will coordinate the perceptions and plans of the two countries to allow more effective joint and combined actions globally. Considering the negative view held by Mr Obama regarding the "special relationship" between the UK and US, this is a surprising development. If the reports are confirmed by events, it is a most welcome one as well.
While such a joint body may easily be nothing more than a pro forma exercise in policy futility, there is some chance that it will evolve into a genuine mechanism for meshing together the national security strategies and programs of two natural allies. It might even point in the direction of growing to include several UK descended states--Australia, New Zealand, Canada and India--along with the US and UK into a tightly integrated political/military bloc which would be virtually unchallengeable in years to come.
Now, that sort of "international community" is one which is very pleasant to contemplate. It gives the Geek a warm feeling and, being a sensitive sort of guy, he will end this post on this potentially very high note.
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