About Alan Alexandroff

Alan is the Director of the Global Summitry Project and teaches at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Alan focuses much of his attention on difficult global order issues including the appearance and consequences of the multilateral environment and the many global summits, especially the Informals such as the G7 and G20.

A Focus on Dialogue in the Face of “Strategic Distrust”

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Alan Alexandroff

A significant document on China-US relations was released by the John L. Thorton China Center at Brookings to coincide with the visit to the United States of China’s likely next leader Xi Jinping last month. The document, “Addressing US-China Strategic Distrust” was authored by two well-known academics – on the US side Kenneth Lieberthal and on the Chinese side Wang Jisi. A key feature of this document was the wise decision to allow each to express the perspective from their respective countries – without any effort to revise or emend the views expressed by the other over the concerns each leadership has. Only after this singular analysis do the two authors join together to write a follow-on analysis with joint recommendations.

Writing the American view, as pointed out above, is Kenneth Lieberthal a well known American China-hand, a former professor at the University of Michgan and a special assistant to the President – Clinton in this case – for National Security Affairs. Today Lieberthal holds the Director’s chair at the John L Thorton China Center at Brookings.

Wang Jisi is a key academic and advisor to the Party in China. These latter appointments are often ignored in the West. He is currently the Dean of the School of International Studies at Peiking University as well as the Director of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at the Party School of the Central Committee. He was previously the Head of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a key advisor to the Party. Wang Jisi is central figure in the current US-China dialogue because he is able to cross the academic/party divide and his a voice is heard both in Zhongnanhai and in the West. So he is an important transmitter of thinking to the US and Chinese political communities alike.

Both perspectives are more than interesting. The two experts align on the key perspective – “strategic distrust”. Both authors focus on the issue of mutual distrust of long-term intentions termed in this article as “strategic distrust”— and declare that strategic distrust has become a central concern in US-China relations. As they define it:

“Strategic distrust” therefore means a perception that the other side will seek to achieve its key long term goals at concerted cost to your own side’s core prospects and interests.

And while both agree that they focus here is not on military capabilities and intentions the definition certainly resonates with the idea of the strategic dilemma – that the more secure one country purports to achieve, the more insecure others perceive their position.

Lieberthal’s US analysis is compelling including his opening line that for US leaders:

Strategic distrust of China is not the current dominant view of national decision makers in the U.S. government, who believe it is feasible and desirable to develop a basically constructive long-term relationship with a rising China. But U.S. decision makers also see China’s future as very undetermined …

While this perspective makes sense, this a classic US view that enables more conservative perspectives in Washington circles to urge a “hedging strategy” that encourages US leadership to adopt exactly the view that the hedging strategy is designed to guard against.

But I’ll stop here for the moment and turn to the Chinese leadership perspective as described by Wang Jisi.

One thing is clear in reading his views of the Chinese leadership there is in Wang’s narrative and analysis more than a hint of pessimism. It may well be that this tone reflects an effort by Wang Jisi to fully describe what he believes is the current leadership’s distrust of US policies. My sensitivity to this pessimism is in part a reaction to a relatively recent piece Wang Jisi wrote in Foreign Affairs (April/May 2011) – “China’s Search for a Grand Strategy”. While there is certainly some tough thinking in this piece, the grand strategy is not dramatically aggressive. In particular his effort to conceptualize China’s core interests in non-territorial terms – with the exception of Taiwan – but to see instead China’s core interests as – sovereignty, security and development – lead Wang Jisi to declare:

If an organizing principle must be established to guide China’s grand strategy, it should be an improvement of the Chinese people’s living standards, welfare, and happiness through social justice.

Such a grand strategy, were it to be adopted, would cause China’s leadership to focus heavily on global stability and contributing to a “peaceful international environment”.

This more benign perspective is largely missing in this recent piece. Wang Jisi in fact pulls no punches. As he suggests:

Meanwhile, in Beijing’s view, it is U.S. policies, attitude, and misperceptions that cause the lack of mutual trust between the two countries.

Yet it is also clear that the Chinese leadership has altered its view of global circumstances arising out of the 2008 global financial crisis. This global economic crisis and its aftermath has led China’s leaders to conclude that China has ascend to the status of a “first-class global power,” and that the US is “heading for decline.” Moreover the leadership apparently believes that the BRICS are “increasingly challenging Western dominance” and that China’s “development model” offers an alternative to Western democracy. Finally, and more ominously, Chinese leadership believes that the US will seek to maintain its global hegemony and as a result “America will seek to constrain or upset China’s rise.”

So it would appear that the Chinese leadership has – to some degree – bought the revivified “declinist thesis”. It is hard to grasp fully what the Chinese leadership understand to be a fist-class global power. If they mean in other words – and I doubt it – a superpower in some manner on par with the United States, it makes little sense but then I am at a loss as to the Chinese leadership’s perspective on the architecture of the global powers and what the consequences of that status might be for the US and China. It might of course explain the period of “assertiveness” that appeared in 2010 and centered on Chinese push back in East Asia and the South China Seas. As for the economic place of the US, while the political dysfunction are all too apparent, one would be foolhardy to ignore US economic resilience. But it leaves one rather unsettled. And maybe that’s the point.

As for ameliorative steps the experts call for enhanced dialogue and economic integration. While simply illustrative the experts call for greater Chinese foreign direct investment in the US and the improvement Chinese transparency with respect to political decision-making. The experts call for improved trilateral dialogues where China and the US engage with both Japan and India and work to prepare standards and rules for cyber operations for each government. Finally, and probably most importantly, the experts call for “deep dialogue to discuss” how each should operate in the key Asia-Pacific region. This dialogue of necessity should involve the militaries of both sides. Of course this crucial dialogue has been on the US agenda for some time but it has always been sacrificed to the tactical needs of China to signal its opposition especially to Taiwan and the US continuation of arms provision to the Taiwanese military. Still in the context of enhanced dialogue there can be no greater effort by both sides.

But the two experts also worry “that at a time of far reaching change, each side is increasingly uncertain about the other side’s real perceptions and long-term intentions in this relationship.” It is a troubling narrative to those who look to long term collaboration between the US and China. But it is hard to discount and the two experts have provided a bilateral future that we’d do well to take heed of if only to avoid.

Image Credit: John L. Thorton China Center at Brookings

Is it a Caucus; Or a Bloc?

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Alan Alexandroff

There has been a fair degree of speculation – and comment – going on around the global media and in the blogosphere whether the fourth Summit of the BRICS in New Delhi represents a new global leadership group – read that as an alternative to the the traditional powers – whether G7 or G8 or even the G20 or a setting for collective thinking from these countries?

My colleague Stewart Patrick – at the Internationalist blog at the Council on Foreign Relations captured what he sees as the common characteristics of this gathering:

But if the members lacked a common history or vision, they had at least two things in common: their status as emerging economic powerhouses and their resentment of a global economy they saw stacked in favor of the West.

By now it is rather common knowledge that the group – BRICS – was born from the fertile mind of Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs and was identified initially as an investment focus for clients of the investment bank for the 21st century.

This Indian gathering – the 4th and the first to formally include South Africa – has been watched with some fascination by the media and the global punditry. Now many commentators have pointed out the rather obvious – that these large emerging market powers have little in common. In the BRICS there are both democratic states – Brazil, India and South Africa, and two notable authoritarian states – Russia and China. But so what. If we are searching for the “like minded – we are now talking about a “concert of powers” where the common characteristics might well be essential. In fact the capacity to join states together with a variety of characteristics and views may be crucial in contemporary global summitry. Indeed as is often pointed out the G20 is important precisely because it bridges across traditional states – the G7 – and gathers these states together with the new large emerging market states. It is not a gathering of the like-minded – but it is a gathering of the key contemporary powers. It doesn’t make reaching coordinated decisions easy but it brings to the High Table of Global Summitry the major actors in the global economy.

But what then is the point of the BRICS and their annual leaders gathering – and more? For some the point of this exercise is – not much. As Parag Khanna of the New America Foundation wrote in the FT:

Being in the Brics ultimately may not mean much more than being in the UN Security Council or any other high-status grouping (despite the obvious difference that the UN is legal body). One can be in the group, but that doesn’t guarantee that one will be influential or even that the group as a whole will be effective.

The Leaders closed their Summit with the Delhi Declaration. It is possible to gather a number of clues about the existence and the self-identified mission of the BRICS from examining the most recent declaration. In their own words the Declaration argued that the BRICS:

BRICS is a platform for dialogue and cooperation amongst countries that represent 43% of the world’s population, for the promotion of peace , security and development in a multi-polar, inter-dependent and increasingly complex, globalizing world. Coming, as we do, from Asia, Europe and Latin America, the transcontinental dimension of our interaction adds to its value and significance.

The comment from the BRICS Leaders on the G20 suggests a rather positive note from these large emerging market Leaders with respect to this new global summit instrument:

In this context, we believe that the primary role of the G20 as premier forum for international economic cooperation at this juncture is to facilitate enhanced macroeconomic policy coordination, to enable global economic recovery and secure financial stability, including through an improved international monetary and financial architecture. We approach the next G20 Summit in Mexico with commitment to work with the Presidency, all members and the international community to achieve positive results, consistent with national policy frameworks, to ensure strong, sustainable ans balanced growth.

But there are more than a few paragraphs that constitute – well carping by the BRICS Leaders of the influence and direction promoted by the traditional states. There is frustration at the “loose” monetary policy of more than a few traditional power central banks. There is almost exasperation at the slow pace of quota and governance reform at the IMF and the World Bank. There is annoyance at the effort by the US to appoint yet again the new head of the World Bank rather than opening up the choice to a wider range of applicants including those from the BRICS countries. In these sections there is more than a hint of oppositional leadership to the influence and leadership of the global economy by the traditional G7 countries.

When one looks to collective outputs one is not particularly “bowled over” by collective actions. There is discussion of intra-bloc trade using local currencies – which may only impede fully currency convertibility for a number of these states including China – and investigation of a new development bank facility. Other than that there is a significant listing of ministerial gathers, finance, trade, science and technology and health ministers, etc. – see in particular the Delhi Action Plan – but it is rather obscure as to what the goals for such meetings are. While such gatherings might be helpful, one assumes that G20 ministerial meetings might be even more useful for such ministers and the need to hold both might well run these ministers ragged.

The dilemma at first blush is whether the BRICS see themselves as a a “bloc” – potentially an oppositional bloc – that stands apart from the G7 and criticizes their efforts to bring reform – and potentially blocking coordination and reform. Such a creation could well be harmful in an already challenged global governance regime. On the other hand a caucus where ideas can be vetted but where coordination and decision making occurs at other leadership settings with traditional players, newly energized middle powers and developing countries – well that might prove a useful coalition.

Meanwhile the challenges posed by global governance continue – BRICS or no BRICS.

Image Credit: AFP

Taking the Good and the Bad with Global Summitry

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Alan Alexandroff

For the second time in as many years global leaders are gathering to discuss nuclear issues. Once again, over 40 leaders are sitting down – on this occasion in Seoul – to discuss nuclear security. From the outside, however, it certainly seems as though the global public would not be blamed for wondering what this summit is in fact all about.

The early images being transmitted from Seoul largely cover the visit of a forceful US President Obama – I mean this is a US election year – in his first foray to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). This demarcation between the Republic of Korea – South Korea to most of us – and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) – North Korea was established with the truce that ended the Korean conflict – though failed to reach a permanent peace agreement.

In addition the President has signaled that China needs to examine what it has said or is about to say to the DPRK leadership over the recent announcement from North Korea that it intends to launch a ballistic missile carrying a satellite into orbit in just a few weeks. The announcement has caused consternation and significantly raised tensions in East Asia. It has put the recent US-DPRK agreement on nuclear restraint in return for food shipments in question. According to news reports Obama has publicly urged China to use its influence to rein in North Korea instead of “turning a blind eye” to the DPRKs nuclear program.

Is this summit then about the question of nuclear nonproliferation and the threat that North Korea – and yes Iran – pose to the spread of nuclear weapons and the increase in the number of Nuclear Weapons States (NWS). Well – no!

Is it then about the consequences of the peaceful uses of nuclear power? Since the last Summit – Washington 2010 – the global public was witness to the devastating triple disaster at Fukushima Japan – first an earthquake, then a tsunami and then a nuclear meltdown at the nuclear power plant. This meltdown – the worst since Chernobyl – has contaminated – for years into the future – a wide swath of northeastern Japan. It appears that Japan’s Prime Minister Noda is likely to speak to the gathered leaders on lessons learned from the disaster and possible changes to emergency preparedness.

Is this a summit then called to deal with “nuclear safety” issues – the term experts use to describe the area focused on the peaceful uses of nuclear power? ‘Fraid not. This is not a Summit dedicated to the issues of nuclear safety!

No, in fact this Summit of world leaders is tackling once again nuclear security – an experts’ term which in this case means reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism, and preventing terrorists, criminals, or other unauthorized actors from acquiring nuclear materials. Nuclear terrorism continues to be a significant and most security experts would suggest a real threat to the security of states in the global arena. The President called together leaders in 2010 to work towards locking down loose nuclear materials – a challenging threat to international security. As the US President saw it, reining in this threat required strong national measures and significant international collaboration. Any successful use of nuclear material by terrorists or criminals or others could have a devastating impact on publics around the globe – politically, economically, socially, and psychologically.

As suggested by two nuclear security experts, Kenneth Brill and Kenneth Luongo in a recent opinion piece in the New York Times:

Obama’s initiative in launching the nuclear summit process in Washington in 2010 helped focus high-level attention on nuclear security issues. Unfortunately, the actions produced by the 2010 Washington Summit and that are planned for the upcoming Seoul Summit are voluntary actions that are useful, but not sufficient to create an effective global nuclear security regime.

There it is – nuclear security – ending the threat of terrorists or others obtaining nuclear materials and threatening and then possibly using a nuclear device against innocent populations. An important and critical issue that President Obama has taken the lead in organizing and then working with many other leaders developing a program to secure nuclear materials by the global community. It sounds fantastic. Then why the hint of dismay from the nuclear experts. Indeed the article by Brill and Luongo suggest less than universal support for the outcomes of the summit.

The article in fact points to growing concern from experts on the efforts at this global summit – indeed there are many experts that don’t want the summits to continue after 2014 for fear that leaders will “kick the can” of nuclear down the road yet again.

On the face of it the chorus of concern from advocates and experts seems somewhat strange given that that the leaders have come together twice in two years to address loose nuclear materials. And indeed experts suggest that over 80 percent of the commitments identified in Washington have been accomplished. But the concern is the summits have committed states to far too limited a program – and worse. Once again Brill and Luongo:

The world cannot afford to wait for the patchwork of nuclear security arrangements to fail before they are strengthened. Instead, we need a system based on a global framework convention on nuclear security that would fill the gaps in existing voluntary arrangements. This framework convention would commit states to an effective standard of nuclear security practices, incorporate relevant existing international agreements, and give the IAEA the mandate to support nuclear security by evaluating whether states are meeting their nuclear security obligations and providing assistance to those states that need help in doing so.

And there is no question that in the arena of nuclear security there is plethora of conventions, mandates, organizations and institutions that festoon the nuclear security landscape. It is like an enormous alphabet soup. And maybe a singular universal and “hard law” treaty might be the solution as the experts suggest. But then again too many place too much weight in international relations on international law and obligations. And while voluntary standards may be less than ideal, experts could certainly provide a list of priority risks and priority countries that the summit could focus on for the next two year cycle. That would at least help to focus global attention.

And as for a summit going “off agenda” – there will never be a means to hold leaders to a defined agenda. But this summit seems to me to be more – significantly more – than a photo-op – which is generally the knock on global summits. And if Obama uses this to press forward on the DPRK – and possibly Iran – because he is able to sit down with President Hu Jintao – then we can take the advance in this area and redouble our efforts toward 2014 and the next Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands. Half a cake – is – as they say – far better than no cake at all. So with summits.

Image Credit: Official logo of the 2012 Korean Nuclear Security Summit

An Encounter in South Africa

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Alan Alexandroff

I had the privilege these last few days to join a conversation between US and South African experts, here in Pretoria. Hosted by Pretoria University and the US Stanley Foundation, the discussion focused on how, and in what ways, the United States and South Africa might better collaborate on the challenges facing states – in the global economy and in international politics. With South Africa a member of the G20 there was a particular interest in understanding how South Africa might play a role in the new informal club of established powers and newly rising states.

This two-day dialogue was however off-the record so I will not comment on specific conversations. You can have a look at Stewart Patrick’s blog at CFR, The Internationalist (South Africa: Just Another BRIC in the Wall?) for his examination of the South African foreign policy trajectory. Stewart was one of about 6 of us from North America that found ourselves exploring with our South African colleagues from the University of Pretoria, a variety of think tanks and NGOs this most interesting bilateral relationship.

One aspect that emerged early in the conversation and remained a theme throughout was the limited understanding for the views and policies of the other side. Clearly more dialogue and discussion is necessary and should be encouraged – and for the record I will happy to volunteer for the task.

I must say at the outset that I gained little insight in how South Africa sees the G20. In fact there was rather limited discussion of this new global summitry institution. On the other hand there was much discussion of the importance of South Africa being admitted to the BRICS – though it was never expressed forthrightly what the BRICS were likely to achieve – and why therefore South Africa regarded joining as so important to it. It was evident, however, that the BRICS, according to the South African’s – was a caucus where the members were proponents for non-intervention – and that was likely to prove troublesome to the United States.

There were evident divergences in the foreign policy perspectives and priorities of the two countries. And there was also – and I would say more troubling – evident suspicions over the behaviors of each. Thus South Africans were quick to see US heavy-handedness and an eagerness to resort to force in most crises situations. There was great back and forth over whether the US and other allied actions in Libya had exceeded the UN resolution 1973 – and US quick dismissal of African Union efforts to mediate between the Libyan factions. Many of the South Africans thought so. South Africans expressed strong disapproval for the humanitarian intervention in Libya – some even suggesting that South Africans and other African states would be unlikely to resort again to the policy of humanitarian intervention – given the way that the Libyan mandate had been abused according to a number of South African participants.

There was a measure of dismay from the US experts at the reliance on non-intervention by South Africans in a variety of crises settings including Myanmar and more recently in Syria. US experts additionally expressed discontent over the South African approach to the crisis in Zimbabwe and the efforts to tamp down the crisis without stronger efforts to remove the authoritarian leader Mugabe.

So what lessons did I come away with in this encounter? Experts from both countries emphasized the heterogeneity of their societies, their pride in their democracies and their commitment to a rules-based international order. But there was a significant divergence in the way in which they approached achieving that order and a hesitancy in the character and actions of the other country.

South Africa continues to regard UN Security Council (UNSC) reform as vital; they continue to press for a permanent seat there. There was a growing sense from the South Africans that they could no longer count solidly on African support. And both group of experts remained pessimistic that any reform in the near term was at all likely – though South Africans urged greater efforts by the United States to secure reform. Both groups also acknowledged that continuing deadlock would erode the legitimacy and salience of the Council.

The South Africans underscored their country’s concern and actions in promoting peace in security on the African continent – in Libya, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, etc. They expressed annoyance at the failure of the US to acknowledge and support the efforts, especially of the African Union (AU), on the continent.

The conversation was a helpful effort in filling in some of the blanks in the relationship. But there is much to do to reduce the gap in understanding and modify the suspicions that each has for the efforts of the other in global governance.

Distractions, Distractions Distractions … Can Mexico Get the G20 Agenda Back on Track

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Alan Alexandroff

Mexico faces a very large task. Actually Mexican officials face two rather daunting tasks. The first is to persuade G20 officials and indeed G2o Leaders that notwithstanding the crisis of the day, they must keep “front-and-center” the longer term tasks and objectives that put the G20 Leaders at the ‘high table’ in the first place. Through the immediate crises – most evidently the sovereign debt crisis in Europe – and the constant “pulling and hauling” to widen the agenda this way and that, the G20 Leaders Summit needs to construct an agenda and implement policy that secures measurable economic and financial reform.

The second, and even harder, task is to bring Leaders face-to-face with their own unwillingness to grasp the domestic political nettle. As an aside, officials need to alert media and experts to real failure of the G20 – political failure not at the international level but at the national level. The current failure is not a product so much of weak international institutions, a favorite subject of media and experts, but failing national leadership.

Now it may be unfair to call the European debt crisis – a distraction – for the contagion from an unstructured Greek default, or worse a number of Eurozone countries and the likely liquidity crisis that would spread quickly through global economy – is not an event happy to contemplate. But G20 Leaders need to resist “my crisis is your crisis” mentality that markets and Europe promote. In part this is “passing the buck” and at the recent Finance Ministers meeting it was clear that many countries – including, the US, UK, Canada and others were saying – you have to save yourself first – notably Germany – then we can consider wider support. It is a tug-of-war but meanwhile the G20 is “stuck” with this crisis that continues to crowd out needed longer term discussions of Strong Sustainable and Balanced Growth (SSBG) in all its myriad policy direction.

And then there is the need to address the host’s agenda. Stewart Patrick at the Council on Foreign Relations, freshly returned from Mexico’s gathering – the Think-20 – has sketched in his blog, The Internationalist, many of the interests Mexico brings to the G20 Table. Now this in the end may not be the agenda when the G20 Leaders meet in Los Cabos but much of this is promoted by Mexico. Mexico has pressed to promote “green growth” but it is not clear what that is and whether Leaders have a clear roadmap for incremental policy action. And food security has appeared as well. Like green growth food security is a worthy subject but it was there with the French leadership. Now Stewart notes that vice-ministers of agriculture plan to meet in April and May but he suggests that food security needs to be “bounced up” to Leaders. I think there is more than enough that needs to be addressed in the already created Action Plan. Governments need to take action to implement. Ministers get it done!

Now with respect to the SSBG framework and Leaders actions. Recently Uri Dadush of te Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Kati Suominen of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (in fact the article can be found at the GMF website) wrote an article called “Is There Life for the G20 beyond the Global FInancial Crisis?” The authors tackle both the G20 agenda and where is the failure. Dadush and Suominen examining the volatile G20 agenda

Instead, the G20 countries, which together account for the vast majority of the ownership and voting power in the major global institutions, should focus only on the big picture and look to those institutions to translate the G20-designed strategy into explicit decisions – in other words, to find a technically and politically palatable way to execute and enforce the G20’s vision. This is the role – the role of the steering committee – that the G20 needs to continue carving out.

Now my colleague Dan Drezner (you can always catch him at Foreign Policy) has on a number of occasions – including with colleagues from SIIS, the Munk School, the Stanley Foundation, KDI and others at a conference in Shanghai – characterized the effort to “coordinate” global imbalances as “Mission Impossible”. But the economic framework of the G20 – the SSBG framework – requires the amelioration of global imbalances among the G20. That is the task. And as Dadush and Suominen recognize

Unsurprisingly, the G20 has thus far had little success in agreeing on a roadmap to effectively deal with global imbalances, and has also failed to set a clear goal for its efforts.

Moreover they point out that such coordination can only occur with the concurrence of domestic interests and then policy reform at the national level – but it would appear that Leaders are unwilling – or unable – to alter what these two authors describe as the “drivers of the imbalances”. Thus, China has yet to alter its export-driven domestic economy, notwithstanding the repeated rhetoric of China shifting to domestic consumption. Nor has the United States found a policy path to reduce its near “out-of-control” deficit and growing debt. And these are but two of a number of countries in the G20.

Global imbalances policy is a classic instance of all politics being local – but in this instance we are not describing purely domestic policy but the interaction of national policy with international coordination. But let’s be clear: this unwillingness to alter the domestic political equation and revise national economic policy is not a failure, on its face, of the G20 Leaders Summit – the informal ‘high table’ of global governance – but the failure of leadership to undertake the tough political decisions at home. The weakness is political leadership at home not at summit structures. Again as Dadush and Suominen point out:

While coordination failures are ancillary to the main problem – that resolution to issues facing the G20 often requires painful domestic reforms – they risk becoming means to deflect attention from the domestic reforms that are so badly needed.

So keeping the agenda on SSBG target, and cajoling G20 Leaders to take action at home – that is the real Mexican agenda

Image Credit: Government of Mexico

“After You Alphonse” – The G20 and Building a “Firewall” Against Eurozone Contagion

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Alan Alexandroff

G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bankers have wrapped up their meeting in Mexico.

So what’s the result?

Well the battle has not yet been won to create a significant enough “firewall” to calm the markets and assure them that contagion will not spread beyond Europe.

But it appears to be coming.

The heart of the issue is Germany’s reluctance to add to the bailout fund that had been created – Europe had first built a temporary fund – the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) and then subsequently created a permanent European Stability Mechanism (ESM). That combination would total about 750 billion euros. But Germany is not yet ready to do that. And the G20 – or at least many of the G20 countries – are not prepared to augment the IMF support standing around $358 billion by some $500 to $600 billion – until Europe makes a greater contribution.

The G20 countries have pressed Europe (see the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bankers Communique) – that means principally Germany in this case – to increase the European contribution. It is still unclear whether Germany is prepared to commit – it would appear not to be by next week at the European Summit set for March 1 – 2nd.

Where do the G20 countries stand – and why? Most critical in this discussion is Germany. And Germany has resisted – and continues to resist though apparently less vociferously the enlargement of the Eurozone’s bailout fund.

Germany appears, in part, to be playing for time. The German Government faces a crucial vote in its legislature on Monday – a vote to accept a second rescue package. – As a bit of an aside the Netherlands and Finland also face legislative approval in the coming week. It also seems that the German government is playing for time to see if the Greek government will be successful in swapping Greek debt held by banks and other investors that propose a significant reduction in the face value of the debt, or drawn out maturity and/or rate reductions – or all three. And the Merkel government is all too aware that German public opinion is strongly opposed to to further bailout actions for Greece. In fact in a poll released today, Sunday, by Bild am Sonntag (quoted in Reuters) showed that 62 percent of Germans oppose further aid for Greece. Thus, the German government for the moment continues to insist that an enlarged firewall may cause governments to ease up on their fiscal austerity measures and additional economic reform. The strongest views from the German government continues to argue that the ESM is sufficient as it is. In the meantime, however, Greece, Ireland and Portugal are locked out of debt markets.

Most of the G20 countries – developed and large emerging markets alike – have urged Europe to take further steps to reduce the risk of contagion. A number of developed countries such as the UK and Japan are prepared to raise further IMF support along with a number of developing and large emerging market countries, most insist that will not act without further actions by Europe. And the United States has both urged greater European actions but has also made clear that it will not contribute in any instance to the enlargement of the IMF package.

So it is unclear today whether Europe will enlarge the bailout at the March EU Summit or that a complete package – somewhere near $2 trillion including European and IMF funds – will be ready or concluded by the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bankers when they meet again toward the end of April. But we can see that the G20 Ministers and Central Bankers meeting has been important in trying to construct a bailout package. Furthermore in looking at the comments of the ministers and central bankers there is not a simple divide between developed and large emerging market states and developing countries.

Speculation over the legitimacy of the G20 continues apace. But the legitimacy focus is ill placed (see the Reuters blog – “The Great Debate” and the article by Terra Lawson-Remer, february 24, 2012) . The current troubles in constructing a bailout package reflect popular and legislative opposition in a number of countries – Germany most notably – but in other European countries as well and in the United States. This is not a G20 legitimacy debate at all; it is a political battle in the domestic and international contexts. That fact that executives and their officials cannot act without calculating legislative dis/approval is not new – remember the “failure” of the Kennedy Round in the US Congress. But this says next to nothing about G20 legitimacy. What it reflects is that global economic negotiating, indeed almost any international negotiating – as we were told long ago by Harvard’s Robert Putnam – requires officials to negotiate in two ways – across the table with other leaders and officials, and backwards and over their shoulders with the legislators and broader publics of the country. The “high table” of international economic negotiations has never been leaders and officials divorced from domestic politics. And it isn’t now.

Image Credit: Chris Skinner – Financial Services Club Blog

Tackling ‘Peace and Security’ at the G20 – Sort of

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Alan Alexandroff

This weekend a number of these foreign ministers – most notably United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Germany’s Guido Westerwelle – will convene at the invitation of Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa in Los Cabos Mexico (in June the G20 Leaders Summit will meet at Los Cabos). – For the first time these ministers gather under the G20 umbrella to discuss – at least in principal – “foreign and security” policy.

Is this then the final grand leap of the G20? Will the Leaders Summit now include a full global summitry agenda economic, financial, peace and security? Will G20 Leaders gather to tackle economic and financial regulatory reform and securities crises as well?

Well – not exactly.

Among the G20 there has always been tension, if not outright contention, over the scope of the Leaders Summit agenda. While some G8 countries have urged tackling at least questions on nuclear non-proliferation, or crisis management and resolution, others, notably non G8 countries such as China and Brazil have resisted any extension which would bring peace and security issues to the G20 agenda and remove it from the UN Security Council. As Bruce Jones Director of “Managing Global Order Project” at the Brookings Institution declared

What is left behind is foreign and security policy … In this regard, the G-20 foreign ministers meeting in Los Cabos represents the first real opportunity we’ve had to begin that work.

Bruce has gathered a number of experts and former ministers from around the G20 to reflect on this upcoming meeting at the Brookings Institution website. In general Bruce and his colleagues support the calling of this meeting. Among those is Celso Amorim, former Foreign Minister of Brazil, who writes:

Without exaggerating the scope of the changes that may begin with the February meeting of Foreign Ministers in Mexico, one is allowed to hope that it can at least initiate a process which someday will impact on the formal institutions that deal with political and security matters. In order that such a process may take place, it is essential that the FM meeting focuses on concrete questions – such as the ones mentioned here [Arab Spring, the Iranian nuclear program, a broader-based approach to Africa] – and does not lose much time and energy on more abstract issues of institutional nature Nor should it bother too much with other subjects – important as they may be – which have already found an appropriate locus for debate, such as climate change.

So support for sure, but also demands for greater precision as well on the agenda. And the reality matches the commentary. Clearly there was no unanimity on the need – desire for – this meeting. The Mexican foreign minister, the host, has made clear this meeting is “informal” and not a Summit – meaning no summit declaration. In addition 8 countries have not sent foreign ministers but rather lower ranking officials including France, China, Brazil and India.

So it appears that there are a number of questions that ‘dog’ the question of G20 foreign ministers meetings. Key among those is the agenda. The Mexican foreign minister has suggested that the meeting will tackle “pressing issues” including food safety, strengthening the rule of law and providing efficient and coherent leadership to tackle global challenges. He also made clear that the the group would discuss but rule out statements on critical crisis issues such as Syria. So less on crisis management – at least formally – and more on issues that Lee Dong-hwi of IFANS in Korea, another of the Brookings invited experts, calls “hybrid issues” – issues where economic and security issues are inextricably linked. This indeed may be the incremental way to extend the agenda to more “peace and security-like” issues. But food security and climate change might best be discussed by others – rather than the foreign ministers. The foreign ministers after all represent a more traditional conception of diplomacy. Once foreign ministers were the only officials that dealt with international matters in global settings. But that is long gone.

In the “Iceberg Theory” of global summitry (see my June 2011 blog post “The Iceberg Theory of Global Governance – Seeing it Work”), of which I am a strong advocate, obviously, significant ministerial, working party and transgovernmental regulatory networks (TRNs) including a wide variety of intergovernmental, ministerial, regulatory and administrative institutions, are tasked – by Leaders and Ministers – with developing standards and policy reforms that then need to be implemented by national authorities. Leaders Summits are but the “tip of the iceberg” of global summitry.

So, it is not at all clear that foreign ministers are the best at dealing with many of these not really policy subjects for foreign ministers. But if it is “crisis management” that will occupy the agenda, then the China’s, Brazil’s and others will insist that the discussions need to be at the UNSC.

Nevertheless it may be that the foreign ministers may best tackle crisis prevention matters and at least publicly limit, at least for the moment, the immediate crisis situations – though it is a setting where at least countries avoid the distorting impact of the “all mighty Security Council veto”. And I think Bruce Jones has picked up on this crisis prevention agenda and the “speak softly approach” for crisis management:

Far more important is relationship building, building shared perspectives on key security issues, nd an informal space for back room negotiations. I suspect that Secretary Clinton will use quite a lot of her time in Los Cabos cornering her Chinese and Russian colleagues on the Syria question – and that’s very much to the good.

So let’s urge a crisis prevention approach and a discussion of current security crises – even if those aspects of the discussion are left to the back room for now.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

All about Tragedy and Offensive Realism – the Life and Times of John Mearsheimer

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Alan Alexandroff

Well I was on my way to examine “offshore balancing” when I encountered this fascinating piece by Robert D Kaplan – subject my colleague John Mearsheimer at political science at the University of Chicago. The article on John is contained in the latest Atlantic Monthly entitled, “Why John J. Mearsheimer is Right (About Some Things)” and with several great pictures of John – one especially at the end of the article identifiably at the University of Chicago. This piece does raise offshore balancing but that is not reason enough to target it. Nor is the fact that Dan Drezner also took the opportunity to blog on John, see his piece at his foreignpolicy.com following the Kaplan piece – though clearly he beat me to the punch – drat!

The idea for detouring to the subject of this piece really is two-fold. One is to use the article to examine again US perceptions on China and the China-US relationship. The second, to mull over – if just briefly – the interrelationship of Kaplan to Mearsheimer. For in the end the piece on Mearsheimer is, in my view, about Kaplan and his framing of international relations and US grand strategy – and far less, in a number of respects, about Mearsheimer. And indeed Mearsheimer poses a conundrum for Kaplan – hence the contingently phrased title. While Mearsheimer’s “offensive realism” is ‘right up Kaplan’s alley’ the controversy that Mearsheimer has raised in his attack on America’s Israel lobby – is not. For Kaplan the article is an exercise of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. As Kaplan writes in the piece:

The real tragedy – [no pun intended I assume for The Tragedy of Great Power Politics – John’s most powerful IR book] of such controversies, as lamentable as they are, is that they threaten to obscure the urgent and enduring message of Mearsheimer’s life work, which topples conventional foreign policy shibboleths and provides an unblinking guide to the course the United States should follow in the coming decades. Indeed, with the most critical part of the world, East Asia, in the midst of an unprecedented arms race fed by acquisitions of missiles and submarines (especially in the South China Sea region, where states are motivated by old-fashioned nationalism rather than universal values), and with the Middle East undergoing less a democratic revolution than a crisis in central authority, we ignore Mearsheimer’s larger message at our peril.

So read the above as Kaplan urging us to: “come on folks let’s forget about all those nasty Israeli-Jewish-Palestinian debates – with more than a whiff of some nastiness, and let’s focus on the rise of China, US grand strategy, Realism Offensive Realism and Samuel Huntington.” But even Kaplan must admit:

The Israeli Lobby has delegitimized Mearsheimer. Inside the service academy where I taught for two years, in the think-tank world where i work, and in various government circles with which I am acquainted, Mearsheimer is quietly held in higher regard because of the familiarity with his other books, but the controversy (and its echoes last fall) has surely hurt him (emphasis added).

And that is, I suspect what Kaplan believes is a tragedy of sorts – pun intended. My sense is that John cannot help himself. Just recently I was with him and others at Harvard at a US-China policy workshop. There, John played a significant role in discussion and debate. But at various moments John would express himself, or ask a question, stated in the most incendiary fashion – only to pull back after serious reaction, pushback and debate. There is a problem with judgment in my opinion that has not aided John and left him not so much as the enfant terrible, as expressed by Kaplan, but just, at times, terrible.

So let’s leave the personal and focus on the ideas. Dan in his post, “Intellectual clean-up in the realist aisle, please!” focused in part on the Realists. There he takes Kaplan – and the Realists – to task for always acting the victim and declaring that realism is alien to American foreign policy thinking. As Dan urges:

Cut it out already. There is a long intellectual lineage in the American academy – starting with Hans Morgenthau and continuing with Mearsheimer and his students – that evinces realist principles.

Dan having so clearly taken the Realists to task for victimhood, I’ll leave it at that. But let me focus on John’s primary foreign policy view – the rise of China and what the US must/should do. While I won’t debate the practical value of IR theory in foreign policy action – though I think the track record is pretty dismal, and not surprisingly given that much of IR theory, including realism, operates principally at the 30,000 foot level – John’s judgments, indeed predictions – are dead wrong when it comes to understanding the rise of China and US action in response. John’s lens is offensive realism that sees great powers, driven by uncertainty, striving for dominance and hegemony – all of them all the time:

Mearsheimer, who is not modest, believes it is a reliance on theory that invigorates his thinking. Returning to his principal passion, China, he tells me: “I have people all the time telling me that they’ve just returned from China and met with all these Chinese who want a peaceful relationship. I tell them that these Chinese will not be in power in 20 or 30 years, when circumstances may be very different. Because we cannot know the future, all we have to rely upon is theory. If a theory can explain the past in many instances, as my theory of offensive realism can, it might be able to say something useful about the future.” … If China implodes from socioeconomic crisis, or evolves in some other way that eliminates the potential threat, Mearsheimer’s theory will be in serious trouble because of its dismissal of domestic politics. But if China goes on to become a great military power, reshaping the balance of forces in Asia, then Mearsheimer’s Tragedy will live on as a classic.

But China will reshape Asia. It is already doing so. The question really is will this power transformation with the rise of China and the relative decline of the United States result in not just competition and rivalry but in conflict between the United States and China and others. Historically, most other power transformations of this sort have led to conflict. The question in Asia is – will China and the US come to blows? And to understand that offensive realism is inutile. Conflict or its absence depends on both US and Chinese leadership. And it also depends on diplomatic strategy. Elsewhere I have argued that the US – and China as well – need to exhibit more “Bismarckian diplomacy – and here I mean after 1871, and less Wilhelmine behavior. The China Threat School and offensive realists behind offer a brand of US diplomacy that will heighten tensions and make the necessary adjustments between the two great powers more difficult not less. It will raise the prospects of conflict and increase the possibility for misjudgment and mistakes by the two sides.

There is no inevitability of a certain ‘hard type’ of Chinese leadership. Just as there is none in the United States. What is needed is smart leadership employing strategic military/political/economic behavior – on both sides. Within the structure of the international system is leadership behavior and decision-making. These leaders need to get it right. John’s views it seems to me tells us nothing about getting it right.

Image Credit: The University of Chicago: permission from John Mearsheimer

Steve Clemons and the Revisionist Liberal American Foreign Policy Voice

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Alan Alexandroff

So returning to Steve Clemons’s and his review of grand strategy approaches in the Atlantic with his “Rebuilding America’s Stock of Power” which itself is a lead in for Steve to lead an Atlantic Live session that will be streamed live on January 11th. Well, I hope to get there but meanwhile let me attempt a partial review of Steve and his review of various ‘in the beltway’ types in the most recent issue (Issue 23, Winter 2012) of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

Steve has an outsized personality that is a Washington and New York presence. Now Steve is a realist – a ‘happy realist’ – but a realist nevertheless. The ‘bug-a-boo’ for Steve is the rise of China. As Steve points to:

China is driving realities in the global economic sphere today; not the United States – and America, to revive its economy, needs to figure out how to drive Chinese-held dollars (along with German and Arab state held reserves) into productive capacity inside the United States while not giving away everything.

America must knock back Chinese predatory behaviors by becoming more shrewdly predatory and defensive of America’s core economic capacities. Without a shift in America’s economic stewardship – which also means a shift in the macro-focused, neoliberal oriented, market fundamentalist staff of the current Obama team – the US economy will flounder and on a relative basis, sink compared to the rise of the rest.

For these experts, and for Steve I suspect, it is all about finding restraint in a new US grand strategy. With the end of the Iraq War for the US and a growing intensity to end their military involvement in Afghanistan, there is a loud and growing chorus of voices in Washington to husband US resources. Turn down the urge to go abroad to slay dragons. The attack is on against unrestrained US interventionism which Steve argues is, as he calls it, “the dominant personality” of both US political parties. So for the Democrats you have the humanitarian interventionists – read that as Libya – and for the Republicans you have the neoconservatives’ regime change – read that as Iraq. The critique from Steve:

Neoconservatives and liberal interventionists put a premium on morality, on reacting and moving in the world along lines determined by an emotional and sentimental commitment to the basic human rights of other citizens – with little regard to the stock of means and resources the US has to achieve the great moral ends they seek.

So restraint and husbanding resources – economic and military – is the new objective. And each of the experts, in their own way, urge it. Thus Charlie Kupchan declares that in order to rebuild American leadership the US must:

restore the American consensus on foreign policy and the rebuilding of its economy;
work with the newly emerging market powers to create a new global order and protect a liberal international order;
revitalize the transatlantic relationship; and then
judiciously retrench and deal with the overextension of US global commitments.

In a similar vein a quick look at this recent press release at the CFR website for Richard Betts’s new book entitled, American Force: Dangers, Delusions, and Dilemmas in National Security, Betts too recommends, “the United States exercise greater caution and restraint, using force less frequently (“stay out”) but more decisively (“all-in”)”.

Bruce Jentleson performs a reprise of his and Steve Weber’s approach in The End of Arrogance. In the journal article Bruce narrates a Ptolemaic versus Copernican world, where the central image is the displacement of the US from the center of the universe. Now contrary to more realist interpretations, this diffusion of power as described by Bruce, anticipates that China too – the new rising power – will be unable to exert hegemonic power in this new 21st century global system. As Jentleson declares,”Peaceful rise is one thing, assertive dominance quite another.” The Copernican world, according to Jentleson, is a disorderly place, but a global order that, “… means demonstrating the capacity to implement policies that reduce our vulnerabilities, enhance our competitiveness, and cultivate a shared sense of purpose.”

Diffusion of power, the end of hegemony or at least the enlargement of leadership with the inclusion of the rising powers like Brazil, India and China, and a requirement that the United States husband its resources – economic and military.

Steve argues that he holds a line similar to the Kupchan approach though he criticizes Kupchan for holding to such neatly drawn pillars of action for the US. But it seems to me that constraint has been the mantra of the US before – back to the 1970’s and the end of Vietnam. It is not a strategy and it is apt to be forgotten, or ignored, by a new political leadership especially across the political divide that exists in the US. The dilemma that exists today is not a search to enunciate some new grand strategy, but an effort, and here I tend to agree with Bruce Jentleson, to ‘lead’ in initiating collective behavior – the impetus for collective action. And there needs to be a concerted to avoid the China Threat syndrome that is embedded in Washington. Restraint will evaporate unless US policy makers find a way to open a political space for China. This is the overwhelming need in US foreign policy. In the coming years, according to the review of Richard Betts’s book

China is the main potential problem because it poses a choice Americans are reluctant to face. Washington can strive to control the strategic equation in Asia, or it can reduce the odds of conflict with China. But it will be a historically unusual achievement if it manages to do both,” notes Betts. Although conflict with China is not inevitable, “the United States is more likely to go to war with China than with any other major power.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Not For Me! No Yearend Predictions

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Alan Alexandroff

Though I appreciated all the list of international relations 2011 horrors – or the 2012 predicted horrors, I shall avoid the feeble speculation indulged in by many of blog colleagues. No crystal ball for me.

Instead I shall look at two approaches – both designated as part of US grand strategy. The first is a series of articles brought together by my good friend Steve Clemons, the Washington Editor of the Atlantic in a piece called “Rebuilding America’s Stock of Power“. In this piece – besides bringing his own unique insights to American foreign policy, Clemons responds to various Washington beltway folk including Charlie Kupchan from Georgetown University, Rosa Brooks of the Georgetown University and Law Center and the New America Foundation, Rachael Kleinfeld of the Truman National Security Project, Tom Perriello a former Virginia Congressman and Duke University Professor, Bruce Jentleson.

The second grand strategy analysis will focus on the concept of “offshore balancing” and I shall use Steven Walt of Harvard University has the locus for this examination of a long established international relations perspective that has come back into vogue as the United States struggles to deal with the the end of one conflict – Iraq, the almost end of another – Afghanistan, and the emergence possibly of another – the Rise of China.

Stay tuned.