The EU must be more creative in matters of crisis response

Josep Borrel, the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, addressed the UN Security Council yesterday. It was a long speech about several crisis situations. But the true message was about multilateralism. He stated the strong support the EU is providing to the UN and repeated the message that global problems do call for multilateral action. That was positive. But he was speaking to a very divided and weak Security Council. His words were certainly the right ones, but I can safely guess that their impact was negligible. The climate in the Council is not favourable to global or multinational responses. In addition, his description of the crisis was not creative. For instance, he spoke about the Sahel but added no new idea to what is already known. His concern was to show that the situation in the region is deteriorating – an important message – and that the EU and the UN are cooperating throughout the Sahel. But there was no indication of a line of action that should be followed to stop the fall.

The EU must be more realist in terms of crisis resolution. It should recognise that the current approaches are not yielding results. And it must come up with alternative paths. That would be a much stronger message and a way of giving strength to the EU’s role in matters of peace and security.

Maduro's days

The Venezuela standoff goes on. Time plays against Nicolás Maduro. He sees what remains of his authority being eroded with the passing of the days. He knows that, I believe, and is certainly preparing a heavy-handed response. And that’s the main danger at this stage: serious loss of lives.

Maduro also understands that the current context is different and not very favourable to him. The opposition is united. They have a charismatic and widely accepted leader. There is regional and international support to the new leader. Moreover, the regional rapport of forces is no longer what it used to be: now there is Bolsonaro next door, and the countries of the region are against him, except for Mexico, Cuba and Bolivia. And there has been a serious deterioration of the hardships most of the population is confronted with. The circumstances are playing against Maduro.

But he is still in the Miraflores Presidential Palace. And he has the support of his generals and admirals. That is important. The question is about the support of the lower ranking officers within the armed forces. That’s one of the keys to unlock the crisis.

The reform of the UN Security Council

Acts of war and drawn-out conflicts are among the key factors that undermine the authority of UN Security Council. Actually, they have a major negative impact on the Council. And they are in open contradiction with the positions stated by some key members of the UN that keep repeating that it is important to improve the functioning of the Council and abide by its decisions.

This reminds me that the reform of the Security Council is not just about revisiting the issue of its membership. That one is already an impossible goal. However, it seems easier to achieve than the issues related to improving the Council’s capacity to resolve conflicts that are directly related to the strategic interests of its permanent members. Or the Council's approach to long lasting impasses. What could be the accepted doctrine on intervening in that type of intractable conflicts?

End of break

Time to resume the daily routines, after a period of rest in Southern Spain. And the first thing I notice is that the key people in the European institutions are still too much focused on security issues. It´s not a good idea. The security mechanisms are in place and they can do the job at hand. The politicians do not need to meddle too much with the security domain. They just need to provide the necessary legal and financial support. And then concentrate their minds on the economic and social challenges that are at the centre of the citizen´s preoccupations as well as on the relations between Europe and some key outside nations. That should be the agenda for the rentrée.

Guinea-Bissau

One of the forgotten countries is Guinea-Bissau, in West Africa. It has been in and out of crisis for the last seventeen years or so. Furthermore, it’s a tiny country with very little strategic interest. It was therefore easy to ignore it and to be blind to the plight of its population.

In Brussels today, after many years of hesitation, there has been a donors ‘meeting on Guinea-Bissau. The preliminary outcome is encouraging. The door for re-engagement has been open. The next step is to make sure that the commitments made by both sides, the government and the external partners, are indeed implemented. So often, these undertakings remain unfulfilled or are to slow to implement. And the blame game starts.

Let´s hope this time we will see a faster move. The people of Guinea-Bissau would certainly deserve it. 

Getting closer to trouble

I am not a pessimist. I have actually no personal reason to be one. But as I look into the year that is about to start I get worried. There are a number of major geopolitical risks in the air. And the world economy is also closer to a new serious slowdown. In addition, in our part of the world people see their standard of living being threatened by new austerity measures, more taxes and poor availability of job opportunities. There is also a growing nationalistic sentiment in different corners of old Europe.

These are times of great challenges. They require courageous leaders. And we seem to be short of them as well. That´s what worries me most. 

One-stream approach to crisis management

We are in the middle of a series of discussions about a comprehensive approach to crisis response. 

We all recognize how important it is to take into account the different instruments of power available to deal with a major crisis. And then we design the response, the plan of operations, we decide on the means and the ways. And we focus just on the instrument of power that is familiar to us. One single angle to sort out a multi-dimensional problem.

It is question of comfort zone. We prefer to stay with the tools we are used to handle. 

Keeping the parts together is critical to win

It is not always true that an alliance of states is stronger than one single state. The alliances are particularly fragile when its workings are based on consensus. Consensus at a time of crisis is difficult to build and sustain. And the key set of actions of the adversary is aimed at breaking the consensus, creating divisions, exploiting the differences and diverging interests. Furthermore, the adversary will spend a lot of resources trying to divide public opinion within the alliance. Public opinion is critical in the information age of today. The adversary knows it. Actually, very often it pays more attention to our public opinion than we do. And that´s one of the weaknesses we need to address. No conflict in this age can be won if we do not carry the vast majority of the citizens with us. 

A plane too much

The shooting-down of the Malaysia Airlines plane is clearly the work of the separatists Russia supports in Ukraine.

The tragedy brings in two points: Russia has to stop its backing of these individuals; and the Kiev government has to assess its own capability to deal with the rebels. If the assessment concludes that the government forces cannot resolve the crisis in the very near future, then the solution is to ask for help from Ukraine´s friends. The point is that the armed violence has lasted for too long and should therefore be resolved without further ado. 

Back and promoting negotiated solutions to shared crises

Back from a long voyage, I recall that one of the last posts I wrote before travelling has been about Russia and NATO. That post remains so current!

But I should add that we, on our side of the world, have a biased view of Russia as well. The Russians might believe in confrontation. But we have also shown we share the same believe. We might say that everybody wins if we cooperate and dialogue. However, we love to impose sanctions on others and still think that the ultimatum is a fine diplomatic instrument. Or the best diplomatic tool is to be able to understand the strategic interests of the adversary and initiate a dialogue taking such interests as the starting point for a negotiated solution.

Crisis in South Sudan

South Sudan is in a mess. The crisis is deeper than many had thought. It has very strong tribal roots and that is the worst case scenario in a new country like South Sudan. The combatants are used to fight and it will very difficult to convince them that they have more to gain from a ceasefire and a political agreement than from being in charge of their part of the country. 

But the only way forward is to negotiate and to restore peace. A political arrangement is required. President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, the two leaders that matter in this crisis, need to compromise. They have to be told so and in very clear terms.

The UN mission needs to work closely with the neighbouring countries ‘governments in order to contribute to a political solution. It cannot accept to be side-lined. And it cannot run away from its political responsibilities.

  

To ignore the threats has also a cost

We keep talking about the cost of each peacekeeping operation, the funds required by proactive diplomacy and crisis prevention, the expenses related to military deployments in far-flung lands, etc.

But we never ask the other question: what would be the cost of inaction, what would be the financial, economic and human costs if we decide to remain out and passive?

There is indeed a cost if we help. However, sometimes that cost is just much smaller than the consequences of deciding to ignore.

This is certainly one example of a question that we have to start raising. 

Leadership and related matters

In today’s world, when you have a crisis, you invest in diplomacy and negotiated solutions. But it would be a mistake not to back diplomacy with knowledge and force preparation. You need to know. You have to access the best analysis of options you can get and, at the same time, enough force and determination to make use of it. This is the quickest way to convince the other side, the opposing side, that negotiations are the best alternative for them. More than ever, a comprehensive approach to crisis response requires good diplomats, top class intelligence and well trained soldiers.  On top of that, you have put good leadership. And that’s the difficult part of this complex equation. Leadership. Leadership is about vision, intuition, and courage. It requires experience, and combines it with commitment and risk taking.

The Security Council has to look at the Egyptian crisis soonest

I wrote yesterday’s post hours before the new dramatic developments in Egypt. At the end of my writing, I said “everything else is too tragic to contemplate”.

Today, we have to contemplate it. Many people – the exact figure remains unclear – were shot at when demonstrating in the streets of Cairo. The bullets came from the armed forces and the police side. In some cases, there was a deliberate intention to kill. Sniper fire is about “executing” people. And snipers are very extensively trained sharpshooters that can only be found, in a country like Egypt, within the official security apparatus.

It is time for the international community to come in and offer the bridges and platforms for dialogue that the Egyptians themselves might not be able to construct. Indeed, the Egyptian society seems too divided to be able to sit together on their own and agree together on a way out of the deep crisis and on their future. Key members of Security Council should step in now. The pressure for them to take up their international responsibility should come from all quarters. Without that pressure from the international public opinion, those countries will not act. They will continue to pretend that they are very busy elsewhere and that Egypt is mature enough to solve her own problems.

This is the time to act. 

Please tell Kim Jong-un the truth

Kim Jong-un is a young man. When he took over as leader of North Korea he had an opportunity to make history. He could have initiated a process that would bring the North and the South together. As a young fellow, with a long political future in front of him, this would have been the smart approach, as there is no other way out of the permanent crisis and poverty his country experiences.

He seems now to have missed the boat. For whatever reasons –lack of political sense of the realities, poor strategic advice, pressure from the regime elites, particularly from the military –he has opted for a very serious escalation of the war rhetoric. Some analysts claim this is the usual bluff, a recurrent feature in the Pyongyang politics. I am afraid it is more than that. He and his generals might have managed to be fooled by their own bombastic nonsense. They might have fallen victims of their own delusion.

The fact of the matter is that at present we have a very dangerous situation developing in the Korean Peninsula. If by any chance, Kim decides to launch any attack –in the understanding that he has no means to reach US territory –he and his regime could end up by paying a very high price for the folly.

I hope someone is getting ready to tell Kim Jong-un the truth.  Urgently. 

Human rights and reconciliation

In Northern Mali, now that the French military operations brought state control back to the urban areas, the next challenge is to make sure that the national army respects the human rights of the Tuareg populations. The soldiers come from the south of the country and tend to see everyone that looks Arab or Tuareg as a suspect Islamist, or, at least, as a collaborator of the extremists. This needs to be prevented. There have been already some reprisal killings by the Malian army and the non-black residents of the North are terrified. Their human rights have to be safeguarded.

In addition, it is time for political dialogue and reconciliation between the communities.

All these issues need to be high on the international agenda as some type of assistance is being gathered by donor countries. To start with, France, the EU and the US should make clear statements about the need for a political process, for human rights and tolerance in Mali. 

On the UN and conflict management

The United Nations is the most important actor in the areas of conflict management and peace building. It is also the key source of legitimacy for the international community. Furthermore, the UN has been able to develop a body of doctrine and the respective instruments that place the organization at the forefront of the international peace efforts.

But it is equally a machinery that is fragmented and complex, composed of entities that often are reluctant to accept effective coordination and tend to compete among themselves. The so-called “turf wars” are quite common at headquarters, with different agency personnel vying for visibility and resources, at the expense of coherence and impact.

 It is also a very decentralized organization, which is an advantage, as it brings the decision-making close to the potential beneficiaries. The decentralization gives a large degree of authority to the UN representatives in the field and the trend seems to be to further strengthen such authority.

For an external partner, the office of the UN field representative is the most appropriate entry point to explore opportunities for joint collaboration and coordinate efforts. 

To be committed

This is a time for deeper commitment. Crises and challenges are constant in our competitive world. The only variable is the intellect, the ideas and the will to bring about change. 

Leadership analysis

In a crisis situation, we should start by asking a very basic question: who are the agents of change? 

The solution to any major crisis resides in the empowerment of the right leaders and elites, at the national and local level. It is not just the movers and shakers. It is about those who have the capacity to turn the situation around, if given a chance. Sometimes they might require some external help to be able to play the role that is potentially theirs. 

The opposite, people who only care about their interests and those of their narrow power base, bad leadership is a critical contributing factor to further destabilisation. 

My experience has shown that leadership analysis is indispensable to help us to identify and bring together the political, religious, youth and women leaders as well as the opinion makers. 

In every case, from Mali to the EU, from Pakistan to Portugal.  

The Algerian hostage crisis

I agree with the decision taken by the Algerian authorities to storm the gas facility and try to find a solution to the crisis without delay. 

I know that my opinion might be perceived as contrary to the ones expressed through diplomatic channels by the UK Prime Minister or my friend, the Foreign Minister of Norway, among others. When contacting Algiers, they both emphasised the need for safeguarding the lives of the hostages at any cost. This is in principle the right approach. But out there, in the middle of a vast territory which is easy prey to all kinds of bandits, the leaders of Algeria have very little options. The key point for them was actually to send a very strong message to all the armed groups that kidnapping and attacking gas and oil facilities is not acceptable and will lead to the death of the assailants. 

Tonight, I think that message has been received by the terrorists. 

Of course, I sincerely deplore the heavy loss of life. And I feel deeply sorry for the families. For each one of them, this is a major personal tragedy. But I am convinced these lives were not lost in vain. The kind of action that has been taken might discourage many other terrorist initiatives in the future.

Now, the real challenge for the Algerian authorities is to look for the sponsors of this act of terror and bring them to justice. This is a major test for the government as many of these groups have powerful links within the officer corps of the national Algerian army.

Mr Cameron and other European leaders should now focus their attention on advising Algiers to do what remains to be done. On that front, they should be very firm.