Moving Forward Incrementally – The G20 Continues

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Finance Ministers and Central Bankers G20 Meeting Moscow July 2013

Finance Ministers and Central Bankers Moscow July 2013 Image Credit: x.dawn.com

The Finance Ministers and Central Bankers of the G20 met as scheduled in Moscow at the end of the week.  This periodic meeting is just a part, though a key part, of the “iceberg” that is global summitry today.  A fascinating factoid – this meeting of “finance” officials does not generally include the central bank officials when it gathers at the actual G20 Leaders Summit.  Given the key role that central bankers have been playing in trying to “right” the global economy, that probably should come to an end.  But in any case their communiqué underlined the Iceberg Theory that I and others have identified for some time.

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Expanding the Media Platforms at Rising BRICSAM

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Alan Alexandroff, currently the Director of the Global Summitry Project at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto,  has been blogging at Rising BRICSAM for some five years.  By way of the announcement below, the blog master now signals that Rising BRICSAM is taking a big leap forward with the expansion of the blog to include video posts as well as the traditional blog posts.

In addition with this announcement the blog master is signalling that interviews as well as commentary will soon be a part of Rising BRICSAM.

 

Engaging in Concert – The Fifth S&ED

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This coming week the fifth round of the S&ED (Strategic and Economic Dialogue) between China and the US will be held in Washington.  Many have characterized this as a monumental “bureaucratic circus”  with each side bring as many as two hundred officials to these now annual meetings.  And at times these events indeed have appeared to be like that – a kind of gigantic bilateral “meet and greet”.

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And Why There; and Why Now and Why Them – The G8 at Lough Erne Norther Ireland

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So so much for a return to the informal.  There was all this talk at Camp David about reducing the length of communiqués – to go back to an earlier time of G7 simplicity and face-to-face leadership.  One of my good colleagues, Stewart Patrick at the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) in a blog post at the Internationalist his blog at CFR (I should note the post was prepared pre-summit meeting) fell prey to host hype and the general view from the established states of the G8 of the value of the oldest of informals the G8 – or more precisely the G7 and the G8.     Stewart Patrick chiming in on  the continuance of the G7/8 declared:

One of the G8’s obvious advantages over the G20 is its modest size, which enables the unscripted, candid dialogue that world leaders crave.  The first summit of this kind, a G-5 meeting … remains the model for this sort of interaction.  After intimate discussions over the world economy, the leaders produced a concise declaration of only fifteen paragraphs.  David Cameron, this year’s host, is anxious to go back to those first principles.  There will be no lengthy communique.  No armies of officials telling each other what each of their leaders think.  As last year’s Camp David summit, leaders will roll up their sleeves, outside the prying eyes of cameras and reporters, and get down to business.

Well, I suppose the best you can say, was – that was then, and this is now.  So the Camp David communiqué – a relatively svelte 39 paragraphs over a mere eight pages and accompanied by serious declarations of  the end of lengthy communiqés, proved not to be. The Lough Erne communiqué is a rather “plump” one might even venture to say “bloated” 95 paragraphs over 22 pages with appendices that include a “G8 Action Plan to prevent the misuse of companies and legal arrangements”, another annex the “G8 Open Data Charter”, a section on “Collective Actions” and a G8 Lough Erne Declaration, a document on tax evasion.  In all we have at least 33 pages – and a host of declarations.

Now before I try to summarize what this cascade of documents suggests about the G8, it is worth noting that Patrick attempts to characterize the global summit landscape. It is, “dare I say” a rather US-centric vision of “let a hundred flowers bloom”.  As Patrick describes it, and in the effort tries to put Ian Bremmer’s rather bleak “G-zero” world  to rest:

In fact, the “G-Zero” label is misleading – a barren caricature of the rich landscape of international cooperation that actually does exist.  What is distinctive about our era is not the absence of multilateralism, but its astonishing diversity and flexibility.  When it comes to collective action, states are no longer focusing solely or even primarily on universal, treaty-based institutions like the United Nations – or even a single apex forum like the Group of Twenty (G20).  Instead, governments have adopted an ad hoc approach, coalescing in a bewildering array of issue-specific transient bodies depending on their situational interests, shared values, and relevant capabilities.  Welcome to the “G-X” world.

The dismissal of the G-Zero world is probably right, and the “bewildering array of issue-specific and sometimes transient bodies” may indeed also be correct but this is nothing I think we should be celebrating.  As I have argued in past blog posts the reality of US leadership is that it unfortunately has found the G20 really heavy work and so has joined in in the policy generating process in a variety global summit settings that has, if nothing else, undermined the G20 legitimacy as the apex of at least global economy summitry and left most of wondering where are we going to get international policy outputs from in global summitry.

The fact is if you read the G8 Lough Erne communiqué, the rather hortatory nature of so many elements of the declaration leaves one – well “cold”.  What’s the likelihood of implementation? And how many of these declarations need to be taken to the G20 to obtain the necessary “buy-in” to constitute a collective push to advance a particular policy?

Now I am not one to generally question agendas in the global summitry context but this summit really suffers from a major disconnect between what the officials spent, I suspect, months preparing and what the public got to see and hear at the Leaders Summit.  The communiqué is a vast display of tasks, declarations and policy initiatives with a focus on what the host David Cameron declared was the focus of this summit – trade, taxes and transparency – and a day and half of combat and cajoling with Russia over the Syria conflict.  Syria, however, is assigned to the back of the communiqué (though it is a subject mentioned in the preamble).  If you miss it, Syria is examined in paragraphs 82 to 87.

Though again I am not one to spend too much time worrying at who is at the table, I do tend to agree with comments recently from former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.  For him the notion that Syria is being discussed with the former imperial types – the UK and France – much despised in the region as opposed to the wider circle – dare I say  – the G20 – makes little sense.  But then Zbig has little good to say about current US policy which he believes is too little too late.  The US needs to focus on a peace setting, though stabilizing the sides – making it clear that neither can obtain their objectives through the use of force – is probably a critical element.  As for that I don’t sense the Russians are prepared to “play ball” yet on that front.  The horror goes on.

With the Lough Erne Summit now in the books we are back to the same overhyped diplomatic-speak document from the G8. While the incremental policy making  of officials is critical, the Eight have done themselves few favors by the disconnect between the Leaders activities and the that of their officials.

And one last thing is rather pathetic statement in the communiqué about their own accountability – once again highlighting the limit to the transparency of leaders.  The Report is described at paragraph 51 as a:

… comprehensive report covering the 56 development commitments that were the subject of the 2010 Comprehensive Accountability Report and the additional commitments Leaders made at Muskoka, Deauville, and Camp David Summits.

And their conclusion (subject to wading through the Accountability Report 2013):

The Report shows good progress in areas such as supporting maternal and child health; access to clean water; improving food security; and the helping to build peace and security. particularly in Africa.  But it also identifies that more action is required to deliver on our promises in some areas.

So for the ordinary citizen – there is no transparency offered by the G8 in the communiqué.  We deserve better.

Image Credit: insideireland.ie

Without Trust and Without Paranoia: US-China Relations

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It was a time for informal face-to-face contact – just ended – the California summit between Presidents Xi and Obama. There is a strand of global summitry that emphasizes contact between leaders. Such contact can be disastrous of course. Kennedy’s encounter with Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961, left leaders with misconceptions about the other that ultimately led each to take steps that raised threats and crisis. Let’s hope that nothing like this occurs as a result of this summit. And the reality is that the ‘world of summits’ has changed mightily. The two presidents will see each other again shortly in St. Petersburg Russia at the G20 Leaders Summit. And they will meet again shortly thereafter in Asia at the EAS.

What can we draw as the consequences of this informal meeting of the leaders of these two great powers? Ostensibly the two leaders are searching for a “new type of great power relationship” (xinxing daguo guanxi) – The announcement of this informal summit and the search for a different kind of relationship – read all that as an effort by IR types to avoid what international relations theory tells is the likely outcome of rivalry, friction and conflict between an established superpower and a rising one. Thus many of the foreign policy experts have indeed waded in to describe what might result from such a meeting – and give some expression to the ongoing Sino-American relationship.

Stephen Walt at Foreign Policy, the consummate realist suggested a modest result:

Neither Obama nor Xi can alter the core interests of the two countries, or wish away the various issues where those interests already conflict or are likely to do so in the future. The best they can achieve is a better understanding of each other’s red lines and resolve and some agreements on those issues where national interests overlap. In this way, each can hope to keep things from getting worse and at the margin make relations a bit warmer. … But even if Obama is successful this weekend, this effort is unlikely to prevent Sino-American rivalry from intensifying in the future. The basic problem is that the two state’s core grand strategies are at odds and good rapport between these two particular leaders won’t prevent those tensions from reemerging down the road.

Walt acknowledges the description just referred to is a pessimistic one (he does describe a far more optimistic alternative) based on “… Sino-American rivalry in the future no matter how well Obama and Xi (or their successors) get on this weekend. And so for Walt “intense competition is likely”.

Then there is Walt’s FP compatriot – Dan Drezner. Now Drezner is no realist – and in fact in some ways leans more to a neo-liberal framing of international relations (I suspect Dan may not buy this). But Drezner reflected on this upcoming summit at his blog (I anticipate that this blog post is not his final word on this) by referencing Harvard’s Iain Johnston in a piece Jognston wrote recently for International Security examining the growing Chinese assertiveness – which Johnston largely rejects. The lesson for Drezner is China is no revisionist power. As he argues, “Since 2008, China has had multiple opportunities to disrupt the US-Created international order, and Beijing has passed on almost all these opportunities.” So for Drezner the landscape is filled with collaborative opportunities between the US and China:

Now let’s be clear – China is doing almost all of this to advance its own narrow self-interest. None of the above means that China is suddenly going to embrace the US perspective on human rights or the South China Sea. Still, there are a healthy number of issue areas where China’s interests are pretty congruent with the United States, and where China has taken constructive policy steps. … My main point here is that China is a great power that is inevitably going to disagree with the United Sattes on a host of issues. China is not, however, a revisionist actor hell-bent on subverting the post-1945/post 1989 global governance. To use John Ikenberry’s language, recent Sino-American disputes are taking place within the context of the current international order. They are not about radical changes to that international order. Indeed, contrary to the arguments of some, the current system has displayed surprising resilience.

In a curious way this perspective resonates if only a little with a far more pessimistic view – that expressed most pointedly by Yan Xuetong the Dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University. A strong nationalist, and realist, Yan Xuetong is not well known outside China-expert circles. FP did themselves and their publics a great favor in printing a post by the Dean entitled, “Let’s Not be Friends“. For some time now Yan Xuetong has been arguing that leaders and their officials should not promote a vision of a trust-based collaborative relationship – those arguing for it will only be disappointed. The US and China are competitors. But that need not prevent incidents of collaboration:

States cooperate not because of mutual trust, but because of shared interests that make cooperation safe and productive. China and the United States should look hard to identify what these incentives and shared interests are – and focus on developing positive cooperation when their interests overlap or complement one another, such as on denuclearization of the Korea Peninsula, and preventive cooperation when their interests conflict, such as on preventing collisions in [the] South China Sea. … Preventive cooperation differs from positive cooperation because it is based on conflicting — rather than shared — interests. … Areas of friction are likely to become more common in the coming years, but the two countries can skillfully manage their competition if they work to minimize these emerging conflicts — not only in the military sector but also in nontraditional security sectors such as energy, finance counterterrorism in the Middle East, anti-piracy in Somali Sea, and even climate change. … Encouraging China and the United States to prioritize preventive cooperation does not mean they should abandon efforts to build mutual trust. However, it does mean the two countries can stabilize their strategic relations without it. The worst-case scenario is not that China and the United States is not that China and the United States will face more strategic conflicts in the coming years, but that they never learn how to develop cooperation based on the lack of mutual trust, thus allowing a small conflict to escalate into a major one.

I suppose it is a framing a little like: “don’t trust but verify”. The dilemma I fear however is that all this realist formulation will lead – at least in US circles if not Chinese ones – to analogize the relationship to something like the cold war contestants, even as they draw distinctions between the two sets of rivals. Simplistic competitive framing is too easy and too familiar. The Washington-types that always lean on “hedging” and insist on greater military preparedness will target the competitive and forget the collaborative. Inexorably the US and China will be characterized as the new cold war rivals.

I have argued for the necessity of wedging cooperation into the relationship and rejecting any logic to US-Soviet competition. In the past I have argued that “both friend and foe” (yi di yi you) is the better framing for the great power relationship than “neither friend nor foe” (fei di fei you) – a framing often used by Chinese experts. Starting at the post, “Not Required to Choose – A Strategy for US-China Relations” I have argued that defining the relationship as including a collaborative dimension is necessary to avoid sliding into a more difficult unpleasant great power relationship. Yes, it will be difficult especially for US decision-makers to retain the partnership aspect – that is both collaborative and competitive. -Without that collaborative element to the relationship, however, Washington leadership will be all too willing to accept just a rivalrous competitive relationship with China. It is after all politically so much easier.

Let’s not make it easy for the claque.

Image Credit: channelnewsasia.com

Still A Dialogue of the Deaf – Pivot and Containment

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On the eve of the first summit between US President Obama and China’s new President Xi Jinping scheduled for the 7th and 8th at Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, California,  Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel delivered an annual and important statement at the Shangri-La Dialogue.  The speech entitled “The US Approach to Regional Security”, is not markedly distinct fromrecent speeches by the new Secretary of Defense or speeches by the National Security Advisor Thomas E Donilon – except maybe the announcement that the USS Ponce would be acquiring a solid-state laser to combat missiles and small speed boats, etc., – but still the imbalance between security and military and broader Asia-Pacific initiatives remains stark.

Now he is the Secretary of Defense giving a speech at a military and intelligence conference but the focus on grand strategy, tactical improvements and the strengthening of US allies and alliances is evident. And it didn’t long at all for the Chinese to respond.  In the question and answer Major General Yao Yunzhu, the director of the Center for China – America Defense Relations at the Academy of Military Sciences in Beijing took the opportunity to criticize the speech arguing: (1) it was not at all clear to the Chinese that the US wanted a “comprehensive”  relationship with China; and (2) that the US rebalancing or pivot amounted to anything other than “containment” of China.

Now the “containment” refrain is a Chinese point of view that you cannot miss when discussing US-China relations with Chinese experts and officials.  Indeed at the most recent meeting of the Harvard – Peking University dialogue called “The Challenge and Cooperation”  held in Beijing in January 2013, the refrain of containment was persistent from our Chinese colleagues.  Now the repeated charge is a bit much – not everything is about China – (indeed as our colleague Joe Nye asserted , “only China can contain China”) but a speech like Chuck Hagel’s certainly might well be interpreted in such a way.

So the speech is strong on alliance renewal and/or development – Japan, Korea and then allies further out in the Asia-Pacific, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and even Burma.  It says little about China other than efforts to improve military-to-military contacts – and that is not inconsequential.  But the speech is otherwise disappointing.

Secretary of Defense repeats some standard lines that warrant some reaction. First Hagel claims: “The Asia-Pacific rebalance is not a retreat from other regions of the world”.  Well it may not be a retreat but it sure seems like an escape from the Middle East.  I can’t imagine any US leadership not wishing a respite from the Middle East after Iraq and Afghanistan and the endless unproductive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.  And with budget constraints, I would think that some form of zero sum game is being played out here.  The real dilemma for the US is that it may not be possible to disengage from the Middle East as it would like and the Middle east may require more resources than the US military currently wants to commit.

The second standard line is: “In support of this goal, America is implementing a rebalance – which is primarily a diplomatic, economic and cultural strategy.”  Now again this is a strategic speech by the Secretary of Defense but a one paragraph description in an entire speech of what is claimed repeatedly by officials to be a diplomatic, economic and cultural strategy – I got to say doesn’t really cut it. Moreover in that one paragraph the Secretary of Defense raises the Trans Pacific Partnership – a new trade and investment initiative –  which most Chinese analysts, in fact not even Chinese analysts will tell you is all about the exclusion of China.

In Asia, Secretary Hagel see a range of persistent and emerging threats, including:

  • North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, and its continued provocations;
  • Ongoing land and maritime disputes and conflicts over natural resources;
  • The continued threat of natural disaster, the curse of poverty and the threat of pandemic disease;
  • Environmental degradation;
  • Illicit trafficking in people, weapons, drugs, and other dangerous materials – including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;
  • And the growing threat of disruptive activities in space and cyberspace.

And these matters are exactly where a comprehensive US-China relationship can be built.  If there are rising tensions in the Asia-Pacific and in the China-US relationship, here is the starting point.

But you can’t look to this speech for any guide to a more positive or more comprehensive relationship.  Maybe such a relationship will become clearer at the upcoming Presidents’ meeting. Let’s watch!

Image Credit:  channelnewsasia.com

Are We Facing Diplomacy’s Enfeeblement?

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I was wandering through the pages of a volume on the approach to war in August 1914.  And the reason.  We are now closing in on 100 years since the outbreak of World War I.

A significant number of historians and international relations specialists are casting their gaze back to this conflict that opens major war in the 20th century.  My particular focus in examining these diplomatic volumes was an effort to cast a critical eye on the diplomacy of the period – or more precisely really the complex great power behavior – what was styled after the War as the ‘old diplomacy’.  This diplomatic behavior emerged, so it seems, with Germany’s Bismarck and his diplomatic contemporaries in the early 1870s and continued through the alliances and alignments of this largely European diplomatic period that continued right up to its fateful end in August 1914.

Now I look back and am struck by intricacies and balancing in this classical period of balance of power diplomacy.  My old LSE International History mentor James Joll, better than most, captured the complexity of this diplomacy in his co-edited volume with Gordon Martell:

The theory, if that is not too grand a term, by which contemporaries justified the alliance system was that it would maintain the balance of power.  This phrase, which had been common in diplomatic language since the eighteenth century, could be interpreted both as an objective assessment of the actual military and economic strength of the powers and as a subjective evaluation by statesmen of where their own national interest lay.  The idea was expressed by Sir Eyre Crowe of the British Foreign Office in a famous memorandum of 1907: “the only check on the abuse of political predominance has always consisted in the opposition of an equally formidable rival, or of a combination of several countries forming leagues of defence.  The equilibrium established by such groupings of forces is technically known as the balance of power.” …  Many statesmen and diplomats believed that the maintenance of the balance of power would itself prevent war by deterring an aggressor, either directly or by providing machinery by which, as Bismarck himself believed, one power could control its allies and stop them doing anything to upset the balance.

Now I am not suggesting that the classic balance of power diplomacy is what is needed today.  I am not looking for something equivalent to a twenty-first century balance of power diplomacy, but the current diplomatic void is all too apparent. And I say that in reflecting primarily on US diplomatic leadership, or the absence thereof.  So whether I am looking at global summitry, or Syria, Afghanistan or Pakistan, or the Asian pivot, I keep looking for US diplomatic leadership but find it largely missing.

Now that might be acceptable if others were stepping up to the plate – whether the large emerging market states, or others but there is faint evidence of that either. US leaders are quick to confirm that there is no substitute for US leadership – but the means and US efforts seem pretty hard to discern unless we are talking about US military actions.

I raise this in the context of having just read President Obama’s National Defense University speech on counterterrorism delivered on May 23, 2013.   I  also acknowledge what may prove to be rather too optimistic presumptions on my part in early posts (“Determining Who’s on First“) where I mused on the US Asian pivot and in particular then Secretary Clinton’s assertion that this pivot was more about economic diplomacy.  At the time I pressed the hope that we were likely to see a “more nuanced and sophisticated foreign policy”.  As I said then:

US policy has been so militarized over the last decades and in particular by the initiatives in Iraq and Afghanistan that many officials fail to recognize today the critical nature of economic diplomacy.

Whether US leadership does, or can do anything about it, is unclear.  The explosion of the national security state following 9/11 may have been slowed by Obama rethinking over counterterrorism strategy, but diplomacy remains the “90 pound weakling” to America’s military muscle-bound leadership.

The President acknowledges the insubstantial provision of just one foreign policy – foreign aid:

Moreover, foreign assistance is a tiny fraction of what we spend fighting wars that our assistance might ultimately prevent.  For what we spent in a month in Iraq at the height of the war, we could be training security forces in Libya, maintaining peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors, feeding the hungry in Yemen, building schools in Pakistan, and creating reservoirs of goodwill that marginalize extremists.  That has to be part of our strategy.

Well Obama is right but what is the likelihood of that? And as for greater diplomatic engagement, here is the sum total of the President’s thinking:

Targeted action against terrorists, effective partnerships, diplomatic engagement and assistance – through such a comprehensive strategy we can significantly reduce the chances of large-scale attacks on the the homeland and mitigate threats to American overseas.

There has been a fair discussion of the diffusion of power away from the United States and the rise of new leadership – creating the conditions for a “G-Zero World” according to Ian Bremmer or “No One’s World” by Charlie Kupchan.  But I’d say it’s far less the structural changes but the inordinate US focus on war and counterterrorism that is leaving international politics without leadership.

There is clearly a strategic gap.  Let’s see if Obama can shift to a more nimble strategic leadership.  The first test may well come when Obama sits down with China’s new President Xi Jinping in California at the Sunnylands Estate  on June 7th and 8th.  Let’s look closely.

Image Credit: NDU.edu

Caucuses, Counterweights or Leadership – The Evolution of the G20

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A quick trip to London enabled me to enjoy the valuable discussion at a small gathering brought together at Chatham House.  The conference sponsored by Chatham House and the Australian Lowy Institute spent the good part of a day examining “From the G8 to the G20 and Beyond: Setting a Course for Economic Global Governance.”  Presentations by officials, former officials and policy experts produced a rich context for informal discussion.

My own view was that the most intriguing discussion of the day was a back and forth over the evolving summitry structure. Now I know there will be an immediate chorus of sighs – oh geez architecture again – but the summitry structure has important implications for the global economy and the conduct and stability of international relations.  So back to the discussion.

I think there was a general consensus in the room that the large emerging market powers – frequently labelled  as the BRICS countries – were failing to take up leadership at the G20.  This view was aptly described recently by Harvard’s Dani Rodrik.  In a piece first posted at his blog and then slightly enlarged upon at Project Syndicate – my favorite economics blog site – Rodrik examined the recent efforts of the BRICS, most notably at the BRICS Leaders Summit at Durban.

Rodrik in these posts took the opportunity to first express disappointment in what is at the moment the signature initiative of the BRICS – the effort to launch a development bank, which Rodrik described rather disparagingly in the following terms:

This approach [infrastructure financing] represents a 1950’s view of economic development, which has long been superseded by a more variegated perspective that recognizes a multiplicity of constraints – …

But Rodrik did not stop there.  In a criticism that was reflected in various comments at the conference,  Rodrik argued:

What the world needs from the BRICS is not another development bank, but greater leadership on today’s great global issues.  … If the international community fails to confront its most serious challenges … they are the ones that will pay the highest price.  Yet these countries have so far played a rather unimaginative and timid role, in international forums such as the G-20  or the World Trade Organization.  When they have asserted themselves, it has been largely in pursuit of narrow national interests.  Do they really have nothing new to offer?

One of the conference participants took direct aim at this tepid leadership. He suggested that the premature death predicted for the G7 and now arguably countered by revival and renewed energy evidenced by the G8 or more precisely the G7, might conceivably pressure the large emerging market countries to step up to take greater leadership in the G20.  It might indeed be true that the G7 efforts especially on economic questions might give the BRICS the kind of fillip that might cause them to step up in the G20.  But equally possibly these countries, the BRICS especially, might view the G7 activism as isolating the BRICS  – not to mention the non-G7, non-BRICS countries like Australia, Korea or Turkey – and give impetus to those who see the BRICS as a conscious counterweight to G7 and its economic statements.

Certainly circumstances conspired to show the economic efforts of the G7.  For the day following the conference the G7 finance ministers and central bankers met outside London at Aylesbury. In a statement by the UK Chancellor George Osborne the Chancellor targeted the vital economic questions of the day, “monetary activism, fiscal responsibility and structural reforms.” There certainly wasn’t consensus on these difficult issues but you coud see the rising image of the established powers working on these key economic issues as they have for decades before the emergence of the G20.

It would be a terrible waste, not to mention a destabilizing step were the G20 to lose momentum and to fail to serve as the common setting for the established and rising economic powers.  Certainly the meeting of these groups at the margins of various G20 meetings can be seen to be helpful – indeed they already have – but the focus on separate coalitions is overall in my estimation unhealthy for global summitry.  The G7 needs to be sensitive, more sensitive then they appear to be currently, over their gatherings and the absence of colleagues from the rest of the G20.

Let’s not throw away the first and best setting for collaborative efforts between established and rising states.  Both form and substance are required.

Image Credit:  G7 Finance Ministers May 11, 2013 Alyesbury  – google.com

The Strategy of “Restoration” – “Foreign Policy Begins at Home”

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Richard Haass is one of the most well-known foreign policy experts today in the United States about the United States. He has been on the inside including the head of Policy Planning at the State Department.  Today he is on the outside – but in a critical position – president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

The title here in this blog post is the title of a just released book by Haass.  In the CFR press release the Haass lens on the international system in this new book is described this way:

… Richard Haass describes a twenty-first century in which power is widely diffused, the result of globalization, revolutionary technologies, and power shifts.  It is a “nonpolar” world of American primacy but not domination.  Haass argues for a new foreign policy doctrine of Restoration, in which the United States limits its engagement in foreign wars and humanitarian interventions and instead focuses on restoring the economic foundations of its power.

Now I’ve not been able to complete the book – that’s coming –  but I have gotten a chance to read the CFR enticements, Haass’s own op-eds and the book introduction. But I come away feeling that there is something just not right with this picture, or at least not right given who is presenting the argument.

Haas himself believes that he will be attacked on two fronts. First he believes that he will be condemned as a “defeatist” – as he puts it “… just another apostle of American decline.”  He attempts to rebut that critique but does admit that: “Given its considerable endowments and advantages this country is clearly underperforming.”

But criticism will not just come from those who see the Haass options and foreign policy performance as “defeatist”.   He also anticipates that he will be attacked with the label “isolationist.”  Haass is unwilling to accept this label as well but argues that the domestic situation will, according to Haass, provide this possible situation:

shortcomings here at home directly [will] threaten America’s ability to project power and exert influence overseas, to compete in the global marketplace, to generate the resources needed to promote the full range of US interests abroad, and to set a compelling example that will influence the thinking and behavior of others.

Thus, in the end and at least for this latest version of Haass foreign policy:

The most critical threat facing the United States now and for the foreseeable future is not a rising China, a reckless North Korea, a nuclear Iran, modern terrorism, or climate change. Although all of these constitute potential or actual threats, the biggest challenges facing the US are its burgeoning debt, crumbling infrastructure, second-rate primary and secondary schools, outdated immigration system, and slow economic growth – in short, the domestic foundations of American power.

It just doesn’t ring true in my estimation.  Haass divides the book into three parts and the last, and I suspect the foundation for his restoration thesis and the admittedly most prescriptive part  of the book, is the last part where he focuses on the domestic challenges: budget, energy, education, infrastructure and immigration.

It is possible – but I have to say somewhat difficult to swallow in the end.  And honestly I think Haass has turned the foreign policy threat equation on its head – I would think he should be writing on just those things he identifies but declines to identify as the most critical threat, a rising China, a reckless North Korea, a nuclear Iran, modern terrorism and climate change.  How can the US handle these pressing threats?  Given his foreign policy reputation I am far more likely to dwell on his analysis of these challenges as opposed to his review of internal policy making.  It is not that a foreign policy analyst can’t examine these domestic factors but geez I got to believe that a detailed examination of US behavior and diplomacy including the use of force is what I am most likely to give time to when reading Haass.

And beyond what I’d anticipate I look to Haass to examine, Haass hints at one of the most difficult aspects of contemporary US foreign policy arising from his Haass’s admitted acknowledgement that the US is, or is about to enter a nonpolar world.  So, Richard Haass how will US foreign policy be able to achieve outcomes that advances US interets but also tackles the challenges of the global economy and stability in international relations.  And don’t tell me it is primarily US domestic policy.

Most US politicians today acknowledge the end of US hegemony – but are left bereft in describing US behavior and actions in this new architecture.  Look at former US Vice President Al Gore who this weekend in an interview (see the Globe and Mail, Saturday May 4, 2013 Globe Focus, at F3) expressed the following:

But there is absolutely no alternative to US leadership.  Maybe over time one will emerge, but it has to be values-based and it has to be connected to economic and political and military power, and the United States has been unique in possessing all those characteristics.

Now I am not trying to turn Richard Haass into Al Gore.  But I do think we need to hear more from Haass and others on the shape of US foreign policy in this new potentially more chaotic world.

Image Credit: global.unc.edu

 

 

The ‘Hare and the Tortoise’ – Global Media and their Continuing Harsh Assessment of the G20

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Now I think it was my colleague Dan Drezner over at Foreign Policy who spent some time – at the moment I am at a loss to remember the exact piece – defending the G20 against the dismissive attacks that members of the media are so fond of producing following a G20 meeting.

Well our friends – in this case Chris Giles and Robin Harding at FT – were hard at it at the G20 finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ meeting during the just recently concluded ‘Spring Meetings’.

Here is a gem of a comment from these two media souls:

Since 2010, it has turned from being a cohesive group of te world’s most important economies, ensuring they took collective decisions to solve difficult problems, into a body that spends hours negotiating the punctuation in a communiqué that adds little.  … Countries still value the G20 greatly as a forum for dialogue, but complain that too many nations sit round the table and make unnecessary interventions, with little genuine discussion.  It has turned into a talking shop without much bureaucracy or idea of its role.  Outside a crisis, when nations want to solve problems and are willing to make sacrifices, the G20s relevance to people and companies is diminishing rapidly.

Mean spirited at least.  But are the two right?  Their judgment seems to me to ignore again,  the “incremental” but necessary efforts of contemporary global summitry decision-making.  The contrasting views expressed are bit like a “hare and tortoise” assessment of the G20.  Media looks for the success of the hare and is continually disappointed; for some of us this is about the tortoise and we remain patient.

Look it would be great to have this grand bargain-style G20 – the kind these two media folk and other media types seem to crave but that is not what the G20 offers – nor indeed do many other global summitry settings.  These summits are iterative and depend on the hard work of working groups, ministerial gatherings, sherpa meetings, secretariat work and the work of developed transgovernmental regulatory networks.  The constant reference by media and experts to the actions of the G20 at the abyss in 2008 and 2009 hardly defines the manner in which the G20 acts.  The current efforts on financial reform and SSBG – strong sustainable and balanced growth – are difficult policy developments.  So a quick look at the boring communiqué is required.  Some takeaways:

  • advanced economies will develop medium-term fiscal strategies by the St. Petersburg G20;
  • setting a global standard for public debt management – the IMF and the World Bank will consult with members on implementation and review of “Guidelines for Public Debt Management.” A progress report will be made to the Leaders Summit;
  • The possibility of providing additional policy recommendations to the Leaders Summit on regional financing arrangements (RFAs) and strengthening cooperation between the IMF and RFAs;
  • The efforts to mobilize long-term financing that includes adoption of the Terms of Reference of the new new G20 Study Group with input from the IFIs, OECD, FSB UN and UNCTAD with possible recommendations for the finance ministers and central bank governors later in the year;
  • assessments from the Basel Committee on Bank Supervision (BCBS) on the compatibility of Basel III and the BCBS regulations including a report in July on risk-weighted assets;
  • the FSB will report to the Leaders Summit on the efforts to identify the policies on how resolve financial institutions in an orderly manner – the “too big to fail” issue;
  • FSB concluding the legislative and regulatory reforms for OTC derivatives reforms;
  • The FSB providing to finance ministers and central bank governors the macroeconomic impact study of OTC regulatory reforms;
  • Policy recommendations for the Leaders Summit on oversight and regulation of the shadow banking sector;
  • A call from the finance ministers and central bank governors to the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) US  to conclude by 2013 the work of achieving a single set of high-quality accounting standards;
  • Recommendations from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) on short-term interest rate benchmarks with recommendations for reform by July and in turn oversight and governance frameworks for financial benchmark reform to be presented to the Leaders Summit;
  • the launching by the FSB of a peer review of national authorities’ steps to reduce reliance on credit rating agencies’ ratings – with a status report to be provided to the Leaders Summit;
  • a report from the OECD on progress toward countries signing or expressing interest in signing the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters and a report back from the OECD -following work with the G20 – on new multilateral standard on automatic exchange of information; and
  • a July report from the OECD with comprehensive proposals to the finance ministers and central bank governors on tax base erosion and profit shifting.

Worthy of headlines from the media – probably not.  To the extent that these actions and reports don’t lead to key national commitments – meaning regulations and laws – then our media friends may be right.  But progress in some or all of these many initiatives warrant some attention.  And it is all this work that media folk are quick to just ignore.

I would also say that collective discussion – contentious though it may be – over Japan’s quantitative easing policies – is important.  For the moment,  it would appear that most of the G20 are prepared to accept that these Japanese actions are not steps in competitive devaluation, which might, if so described, lead to national responses that could harm many.   We will have to see, however,  the impacts on some of the large emerging market countries and then their responses.

Finally, on the economic growth front it is evident that the G20 believes that not enough is being done to counter global economic weakness.  Clearly a key culprit in this is the EU and in particular the eurozone, though the UK figures in as well.  This of course appears to be a continuing drama from the close to irresponsible actions in the eurozone.  I have consistently argued that the G20 has little role here – but  to urge a change of course which it appears now to be doing.  But the G20 is constantly being dragged into this European drama.

The bottom line is that the media misses the work in progress – and announces failure.  I think that is going too far at this point.

Image Credits:  logo – www.pnswb.org and picture – www.nannewsngr.com