The Fletcher Forum Podcast

Founded in 1975 and published biannually, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs is the student-managed foreign policy journal at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The publication provides a broad, interdisciplinary platform for analysis of legal, political, economic, environmental, and diplomatic issues in international affairs. The Fletcher Forum podcast will serve as another avenue for The Fletcher Forum and will feature interviews, roundtable discussions, and debates centered around the latest in international affairs.

Disobedience Podcast Part 3: Somos Un Rostro Colectivo 07/06/2022

Disobedience Podcast: Part 2 - Invasion Day 05/04/2022

Disobedience Podcast: Part 1 - The Egba Women's Revolt 04/02/2022

Understanding Russia's Attack on Ukraine 03/21/2022

Addressing the Rohingya Crisis in Bangladesh 03/16/2022

PublicTech and the Pandemic: Part 1 - Contact Tracing Apps 03/06/2022

Hydropower for Whom 04/20/2021

Integrating Social Norms into Anti-Corruption Strategy 11/13/2020

Dr. Courtney Fung on China's Interventions in the UN Security Council 02/26/2020

Deloitte's Paul Magill on Firms' Preparedness for Organic Growth 02/06/2020

Interview with Sam Dagher, Author of "Assad or We Burn the Country" 12/14/2019

The Future of Fletcher: An Interview with Dean Rachel Kyte 12/02/2019

SNEAK PEEK: Democracy in the Age of Disinformation Conference 11/20/2019

Rocking with Kaiser Kuo: A Conversation on Podcasts, Media Control, and U.S.-Chinese Relations 05/17/2019

An Interview with Mr. Brett Bruen 05/06/2019

An Interview with Mr. Brett Bruen On March 13, 2019, Mr. Brett Bruen spoke at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy on his theory of “counter-crisis management,” which he uses in his work as President of the Global Situation Room to identify vulnerabilities and develop reputational countermeasures for organizations operating in crisis-affected parts of the world. His interview was conducted by Samantha Chen, Web Staff Editor of The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. FF: You served as the Director of Global Engagement at the White House under President Obama. Could you tell us about that experience, and some of the most impactful moments or lessons that informed your decision to found the Global Situation Room? BB: It was a more hopeful time. We were looking for ways to deepen our engagement with the world, whether it was engaging with the next generation of young leaders, sparking entrepreneurial opportunities, or looking to expand international education. We believe that it was an investment in a future that would pay dividends for American influence and prosperity. Interestingly, many of those programs continue. Ivanka Trump went to India for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, and Secretary Pompeo was hosting an event at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kansas. It’s encouraging to see those programs continue, even if they may have been reduced and the policy of the current administration has redirected to a more isolationist focus. These programs will allow us to keep, and perhaps even to cultivate, ties that will be important in a post-Trump world. Founding the Global Situation Room came about because I was spending so much time with entrepreneurs that I think I got infected with the entrepreneurial spirit. I think that applying the tactics and tradecraft of diplomacy to helping companies and organizations navigate the complexity of today’s world is a comparative advantage, because there aren’t enough firms that provide a global skillset that can help companies seamlessly move around the world and navigate any ensuing risks. You see a lot of companies that focus on different countries, but they don’t connect that work and provide a comparative offering that can help companies to really understand how these pieces fit together. We are especially focusing on the risk and crisis management work. I don’t think that the tools of crisis management have kept up: they are designed for an era where we had more time, when we had the luxury of working on one problem at a time. Today, companies have to be able to get out and engage, rather than hide under the desk and wait for the storm to pass. We’re focused on helping them do that. FF: Can you talk a little bit more about what counter-crisis management theory is and what was the impetus behind developing this theory? How did it impact your work at the White House? BB: When I got to the White House, we faced a series of crises around the world, and I had just come from working in the field. I spent the first decade-plus of my career working in countries in crisis and conflict. To come into the White House and not see the kind of capabilities to respond to these crises surprised me, and I began thinking about how we could develop better tools to be more prepared. When I transitioned to the private sector, I was surprised to see that it was even further behind than the government. I worked to take the skills and strategies that we were refining at the White House and apply them to the kinds of risks that companies were facing. In a number of cases, it has been remarkable to see the results that we’ve been able to deliver by helping companies more clearly identify issues, and earlier. Thinking about the tools they need, we can divide them into two groups. One is infrastructure, or the kinds of materials and capabilities can you prepare ahead of time. These could range from creating partnerships with key organizations, to developing the story of your organization and the importance of the work and the people that contribute to it, all the way to thinking about how you generate reservoirs of goodwill with strategic groups that are going to allow you to have the forgivability not only to survive, but to thrive in crisis. The other is the idea that you could build a countermeasure—a program that would be deployed around a crisis to not only allow your company to survive that tough time, but to seize the next opportunity into which you’re looking to transition. FF: Adding onto your idea about forgivability, do you think there’s a limit to the amount of forgivability that an organization or country can have? BB: Forgivability is very easy to talk about, but it can be very hard to develop. It requires companies or countries to be willing to confront not only what is positive, but also what could be problematic. But, we’ve seen numerous cases, whether it’s Apple or Airbnb, where companies have managed to stockpile so much forgivability that they have been able to survive threats that would have debilitated, if not destroyed, other companies. It’s not something that you can have too much of. Just like some companies try to figure out how to gain more market share, companies should also consider how to conquer more of the forgiveness market in a way that will give them a comparative advantage. FF: Do you think there are differences in responding to longer-term crises, such as the one in Yemen, versus responding to immediate crises, such as the one in Venezuela? BB: In both cases, there is a need to respond earlier, which opens up more options. For crises that have dragged on for an extended period of time, it becomes more difficult to engage in the process of evolution because things have become so deeply entrenched. What I would say is that it is never too late. Even in a situation like Yemen, it becomes more important for us to find a way to reframe this issue and to find the future, because people are so focused on the problems of the moment. You’re ideally looking to introduce a new frame that allows people to see the possibilities of the future. If we stay stuck on this dynamic of what has been the lens of looking at this problem that’s existed for so long, we’re never going to resolve this crisis or get countries to the stage where they’ve moved beyond the danger zone. Often, an international solution is imposed or comes in, and it is really just putting a Band-Aid on a much deeper problem. If we can focus not just on conflict resolution but also on the creation of real progress, prosperity, and new possibilities, that’s much more sustainable. FF: How do you think the United States can more effectively respond to the threat from information campaigns, such as those coming from Russia and other countries? And how can the United States better take advantage of strategic communications to compete? BB: First, I would say that the U.S. government is not doing nearly enough to track threats. We do not have any centralized capability to follow them, whether it’s Russia, Iran, China, or non-state actors, and what they’re doing in this space. We need to develop that capability. We need to encourage other countries to develop that capability and then centralize the monitoring. We know that the Russians will start a pilot project in the Balkans or in other parts of Eastern Europe, such as the Baltics, and then they migrate across Western Europe and then come here to the United States. The second thing we ought to do is create more defensive capabilities. We’re entering the 2020 elections—if a congressional campaign or a presidential campaign notices a concerning series of social media posts or activist activities on the ground, who are they supposed to call? They can call the FBI, but the FBI is not going to be able to go to Moscow and break up that cell. We have to create resources within the government to support both candidates, as well as companies and other organizations. The last, and I think the most controversial, of my ideas, is that we create offensive capabilities that would serve as deterrents to tell Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran that, if you engage in this kind of information warfare, we will respond in kind. Not necessarily with propaganda, but perhaps with transparency initiations or public information campaigns that make clearer to their people the nature of their regime and the kinds of illicit activities with which they’re involved. A lot of these governments that are engaged in this kind of behaviors are actually pretty vulnerable to public exposure and it’s a tool that we should use more often. FF: What advice would you give to Fletcher students who are interested in pursuing careers in crisis response or strategic communications? BB: Sadly, this is an industry that will continue to grow, and students should be thinking about how they can help companies, organizations, and governments to be better prepared for the regularity of risk. One of the recommendations I had for students earlier was to develop a solution, a counter-measure, for one of the problems that a future employer is likely to face. So, when you go in for an interview, you can propose a solution to a problem about which they are worried. It will demonstrate the kind of thinking that a lot of companies and organizations are looking for these days. There are many people who are able to talk about what worked in the past. There are fewer who are coming in with new ideas and with capabilities that enable companies to be much more proactive and agile with these risks. Image: Courtesy of Sylvain Szewczyk / Flickr Brett Bruen is the founder and president of the Global Situation Room, a consulting firm built on the experience of former American ambassadors and senior government officials that provides a range of international public affairs services. A specialist in using strategic communications to influence the course of crisis and conflict, Mr. Bruen created some of the government’s most innovative international programs for reaching new audiences around the world. Mr. Bruen is a former U.S. Diplomat who served as Director of Global Engagement at the White House. As a diplomat, he served in the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Guinea, Iraq, Venezuela, Argentina, Zambia, and Eritrea. He serves as an adjunct faculty member of the Federal Executive Institute, where he trains senior U.S. Government leaders on strategy and world affairs. /episode/index/show/fletcherforumpodcast/id/9796451

An Interview with Mr. Clint Watts 04/29/2019

An Interview with Mr. Clint Watts On November 14, 2018, Distinguished Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute Mr. Clint Watts gave a talk at The Fletcher School on the social media influences of the Kremlin. This interview was conducted by Markian Kuzmowycz, Senior Web Editor at The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. FF: Let’s start with some of your counterterrorism work. What has your experience researching al-Qaeda and ISIS taught you about the changing landscape of cross-border terrorism? CW: The globalization of information and the media not only makes extremism spread more robustly but also more quickly, and while some ideas—as crazy or violent they might seem—may be off-putting to certain audiences yet appeal to another. It can change dynamically in months or years. I think that's the lesson of the Arab Spring in the Syrian conflict or in the rise and fall of ISIS. These groups form quicker, and they may be larger or more violent than they used to be but they can also fall away very quickly. What we want to know in terms of international terrorism is whether the group is rising or falling. To figure this out, just look at the foreign fighters. If you're not recruiting foreign fighters you're a little insurgent group. And if you are recruiting international foreign fighters, then you’re accelerating and moving forward. This can change from one generation to another and from one fight to another. FF: So, if an organization is in that growth phase and recruiting foreign fighters, it becomes much more of an international challenge for the FBI and other agencies to coordinate, correct? CW: Yeah, and you need to be tracking the fluidity between groups of human manpower to understand where the dynamics are going. So, you'll always see there are some researchers that will say that a terrorist group is on the rise or is staging a comeback. You could go look right now and someone’s written an article about al-Qaeda’s comeback every year, but you can’t come back fifteen years in a row. That’s kind of silly. The important thing is that ideas don’t die, but they wane or grow at different points based on pace and momentum. If foreign battlefields open up or if there’s repression from the government, then that’s an opportunity for extremist groups to grow. However, the presence of social media can accelerate this growth even more so than older kinds of media—like a movie—where it might take months to reach countries around the world. So I think that's the thing that I'm always looking for: where people are going now. FF: You led some really interesting social media efforts to undermine terrorist groups like Al-Shabab and ISIS, which you spoke about in your book. Have you employed any of these tactics to counter extremist threats like the alt-right or white supremacist groups within the United States? CW: Mostly just with friends on Facebook, to be honest with you. So no, not on a largescale. Itry to talk one-on-one with those I disagree with, but not in a deliberative sort of way. The natural way to do that would be politics, but political campaigns loathe that sort of thinking, though maybe they won’t in 2020 — who knows? But when I talk to people about how to fight for a real value system, they get real squirmy. They want to do, like, cool Barack Obama bids. I’m like, ok, if you want to lose you can keep going that route, but you’re playing from behind. Your opponent is playing in a different game. There are ways that you can take on a more sophisticated approach to influencing people without lying. You’re seeing it happen naturally, with things like the NowThis videos that are popular on social media. They are highly effective and all focused on policy. They go viral because they’re packaged right and they contain a real message. I think Beto O’Rouke’s campaign was very interesting. People are dying for anybody to be interesting in the political scene. They could benefit from this momentum, but ultimately they always seem to regress to the mean to play it safe. FF: Do you think there are any kind of efforts that you've seen within the government to use any of your kind of tactics to deal with domestic extremism? CW: Not with domestic extremism, but we did have some successes with international extremism. I’m extra hard on the government in the book out of frustration, but there were good efforts. However, a complicating factor here is the fact that declaring a group as domestic extremists just shuts a conversation down. There’s the mentality in our country — who are you to say what I think is wrong? International terrorism is doable because everyone hates ISIS and al-Qaeda. Not everyone hates domestic extremists. Their views often times receive a lot of sympathy in the US, so politicians struggle to amass a wide appeal around any of those issues. Every case is treated as a one-off, as if they’re disconnected when they’re often not. FF: Pivoting now to Russia, one unfortunate effect of everything that's happened with Russia in the last few years is that we seem to have created a bit of a boogeyman. We now look for Russian influence in anything online or in unfavorable news. Do you think we overstate Russian capabilities, or is it more a fact that Russia just holds a mirror up to us and shows us who we really are, and lets us do all the damage? CW: I'll tell you, the latter is their explanation. Awareness was not there in 2016. No one really was paying attention to it. Even less so in 2015 and 2014. So it took a long time for the US to react to it. Then we do the typical US thing, where we react to it to the point where we freak out about it. Bizarrely, we really didn't do much of anything about it. You know in this circle, we haven't really changed a whole lot. The other part is Russia has simply been outpaced by others at this point. I mean, what could Russia have said in 2018 that some American politician was not already saying? I mean they literally could not have made up more crazy conspiracies than a migrant caravan coming to the US and that we're going to deploy the US military. I mean they probably would have loved to have done that, and looking at it afar they’re just doing it for us, right? I'm sure Russia is like, there is so much political dissent going on in the US that we’ll just leave it and amplify it. We'll push it where we can and other than that we don’t have to do much. I can't imagine what Russia could have said in 2018 that was more conspiratorial than what was already being said. FF: Yes, and I think it speaks a little bit to what you said earlier today — that the social media landscape reflects less of a technological problem and more of a human problem. So, are there human solutions? CW: Yeah, I’d want an information rating system with labels so you rate information over time and you get a rating every year. The composite is fact versus fiction publishing and reporting versus opinion, and you would let the user know what they’re consuming. Nutritionally labeled information is essential and then it can get re-rated in a year. But it’s on the consumer to decide what they want to consume. If you tell them they’re reading junk food, and that they’re getting mind fat from it, then that’s on them. But it also gives bearing to people in the middle to sort of police the fringes. They don’t really have anything to go to right now. So, the sooner a system like this is in place, the better. This would help the public sort of reset its role in informed consumption. FF: Who do you think could operationalize that? CW: It has to be an independent rating system. I’d call it “information consumer reports”. Consumer reports did this around product safety, so it has some precedent. I think it should be funded by the social media companies collectively and then they all offer the ratings to their users. FF: In your book, you’ve talked about why people fall for disinformation. Beyond these incentives, what do you think are some of the deeper things that are going on here? Why do people want to believe these things? CW: It’s an excessive amount of choice. We have to choose our entire world, down to just about anything to make you feel comfortable. And people will do that if they have the option, and it’s very hard to push them away from that. It’s asking somebody to put themselves in a position of discomfort and to deal with something that they wouldn’t otherwise have to. If they’ve got friends that make them feel badly, they can just block them, right? You can just shut them out forever if you want to. You have these options now, where you didn’t have them before. If you look back in the early ages, and consider why we have democracy and social capital, it is to survive and to fulfill a basic hierarchy of needs. “I want to continue to farm, but I won’t talk to anybody who I disagree with.” Well, good luck — you’re not going to last. For example, labor unions were created because workers were getting taken to the cleaners by their boss and they wanted rights. There was a collective belief that you were being treated badly at work, which led people of different ethnic groups or religious beliefs to come together to demand workplace rights. You don't have to do that anymore. With social media platforms, you can tailor your whole life and cocoon yourself. That sort of individual preference is throwing people off, and it hurts the collective in a way that we haven’t really learned how to handle yet. FF: Yeah, that’s sort of part of that social media nationalism that you talk about. CW: Yeah — that you identify with something that’s half real and half false, or, not false, but in your own imagination. That’s really my biggest fear going forward for the youngest generation. That they’re going to fall more in love with their virtual reality than the actual reality, and their nature of allegiances will change. Why should you be loyal to your fellow citizen if you don’t have to talk to them? If you’re spending hours upon hours on social media or your phone, then who cares about everyone else? I always tell younger audiences — you won’t be overtaken by the Matrix, you will enlist in it. You will yearn for it, because it will be way better than anything that happens in your real life. FF: Do you cringe a little when you hear people talk about the solution being maybe like cyber information literacy needing to be taught? CW: No, I think evaluating information sources, regardless of medium, is good. That’s one of the first classes they teach you in intelligence analysis in government, ironically. It’s nothing classified. It’s asking: What is the motive? What is the competency? What’s the source saying? All that stuff is laid out, and I think it’s a useful tool for everybody. So that would be good. I don’t think more fact-checking is going to get you very far — that’s a real marginal effort. How much extra effort would it take for the New York Times to be even better at fact checking? It probably wouldn’t make a difference for readers. It’s already the best. So where you can make big differences is in helping people understand the consequences of their physical reality. So things like national service are important because these really create social capital. Not just the military, but also programs like Peace Corps or Teach for America. School is another important place where people come together. Where you’re seeing the social media nationalism play out is in places where people have always lived in one spot and have never left. They have the same friends and move around the same circles in real life that they have on social media. In this situation, it’s very easy to fall into this alternative reality where a “caravan” is marching on Mexico and is threatening our country. FF: Just as a slight pivot — I’m a Ukrainian American myself. It’s interesting that a lot read happening here in the US has actually already been tested. Are there any other environments that we are looking at to see the evolving battleground, or to see what could be next? CW: Yeah, I mean Ukraine was ground zero for the cyber informants’ convergence and the emergence of a new kind of warfare. It was a hybrid war. I think China is where everybody should look for another aspect. There’s is a totally different way of doing disinformation. Those would be the two: Ukraine and China. FF: I heard an interview of yours where you talked about how you only have five minutes to give a testimony to Congress and how you really needed to make sure that you hit the high notes and elucidated the threats that were in front of us. How can we be frank about the threats without it being politicized, depending on who is in power at that moment or who may stand to gain from any election interference of problem of that sort. CW: It’s always going to be politicized to a degree, but ultimately we can elect leaders that are going to push that stuff aside, and that will really be decided in the next year by this new Congress. If the Democratic House just does what the Republican House just did, then it doesn’t work—the problem is reinforced. People have to put country over party and come to an agreement that they're not going to put up with this nonsense anymore. We all know that election machines should be secure. So why don't we pass this act which everyone agrees on? Honest Ads Act is another one. Why didn’t we pass it? It's just very, very basic. So, we'll see. If that doesn't play out, it’s super confounding. What happens on Capitol Hill? Nothing. It’s a constant soap opera about nothing. It’s Seinfeld without the jokes. It’s just C-SPAN running and they’re all showboating or all racing to go get on the cable news channel. Congress as an institution is constantly devaluing itself and the system because they don't perform any of their functions. I mean, ultimately the public will react to that in a certain way but it will take some impetus. FF: Was it discouraging as an expert in the field to testify before them? CW: You know, I was more discouraged before I testified before the Senate Intel Committee than afterwards. I thought that they were very professional and bipartisan. There were only two senators that I thought were kind of out there to score points. It was good. I thought the committee functioned pretty well, and they were working with each other, but they’re a microcosm on that hill. They’re one of the least political committees, and they know more. They have classified briefings, so they’re on the inside of a lot of things. FF: At the very end of your book, you have a beautiful summary of who you are and what you’re looking for from the American people to restore what’s been lost. Is there anything that gives you hope in the last few months or so? CW: We had an amazing turnout for our midterm election—that’s great. There was a 50% increase in youth turnout, which was amazing. More activism in the last two years than maybe ever. I don’t know that even during the civil rights movement that this many people turned out. We have marches for all sorts of issues, that’s great. They’re not about people, they’re issue-based marches. I think that stuff is good. My fears are a little bit different now, and that is Americans taking on disinformation now to win in politics, and how it can unfold in the 2020 run up. Image: Courtesy of the Chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff / Flickr Clint Watts is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center For Cyber and Homeland Security at The George Washington University. His research predominately focuses on terrorism forecasting and trends seeking to anticipate emerging extremist hotspots and anticipate appropriate counterterrorism responses. More recently, Clint used modeling to outline Russian influence operations via social media and the Kremlin’s return to Active Measures. Before becoming a consultant, Mr. Watts served as a U.S. Army infantry officer, a FBI Special Agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), as the Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC) and as a consultant to the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Division (CTD) and National Security Branch (NSB). Mr. Watts earned a B.S. from the United States Military Academy and an M.A. from Middlebury Institute of International Studies. /episode/index/show/fletcherforumpodcast/id/9796454

Changes in the World of Political Risk with Meredith Sumpter 04/25/2019

An Interview with Mr. Orest Deychakiwsky 04/18/2019

An Interview with Mr. Orest Deychakiwsky FF: You have served as an election observer in Ukraine in the 2004 presidential election that failed to meet various international standards of free and democratic elections. You were also an election observer during the first round of the recent presidential race in Ukraine in March 2019, which was by the OSCE mission. In your opinion, what factors contributed to the increase in transparency of the Ukrainian elections over the years? OD: Believe it or not, I have actually observed virtually every election in Ukraine since the 1990s. What I've seen is elections have generally improved, but frankly, none of them have been blatantly unfree and unfair, except for the first and second rounds of the presidential election in 2004, which actually led to the Orange Revolution. Besides those, all of them have to one extent or another been competitive and met at least partially international democratic standards. Now, some have been better and some have been worse. For example, the first round of these elections was among the best, if not the best that I have seen. It was free and competitive, which is something you certainly do not see in Russia, or Belarus, or many other post-Soviet countries. And whether one likes the results or not, these elections basically reflect the will of the people. I think the post-Euromaidan civil society played a role in increasing the transparency of Ukrainian elections. That’s not to say that civil society didn't exist before the Euromaidan Revolution—it did, but only really flourished after the events of 2013-2014. Today you have civil society groups and domestic observers, like and others, who monitor the electoral process and even work with the government to help improve elections, so it has been a part of a broader trend, although there is still definitely room for improvement. FF: Voter turnout in the first round of the 2019 Ukrainian presidential race was nearly 64%. Have you noticed any major differences in the demographics of the voters in 2019 when compared to other elections you have observed, specifically with regard to age? OD: I do not know what the actual turnout in terms of age was. Overall older people tend to vote more, and I believe that was the case in this election too. However, from what I understand, younger people did come out to vote this time around and apparently, if I am not mistaken, more of them tended to vote for [presidential candidate Volodymyr] Zelenskiy. In the Mykolaiv region where I observed, there was a pretty good demographic balance if you will. There were just as many older people voting as there were younger people. But these are just my observations, and I certainly do not want to generalize. FF: How would you describe the Ukrainian public’s moods and attitudes on the election day? OD: The voting process was very calm, peaceful, and relatively stress free but obviously there is a lot of frustration in the country because otherwise Zelenskiy would not have done as well as he did. Frustration with the current administration and with President Petro Poroshenko more specifically is, in my view, not completely justified. Poroshenko is not without his shortcomings, especially in terms of the ability to battle corruption in the country. However, I would argue that he has been the best independent president for Ukraine. Frankly, I think if he would have done more on the anti-corruption front, he would have done much better and been in a much stronger position. So clearly, people are frustrated but I really did not see that manifested in my observations or from what I heard from talking with my colleagues. FF: Let’s focus a little bit on the candidates this year: incumbent President Poroshenko and TV comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy. In the first round of the 2019 election, Zelenskiy received about 30% of the vote, followed by Poroshenko with about 16%. What, in your opinion, should the international community expect from the run-off on April 21? Can Poroshenko get ahead of Zelenskiy? OD: I would frankly be very surprised if Poroshenko were able to get ahead of Zelenskiy, but you cannot rule anything out. However, even looking at current poll numbers, it does not look good for the President. If you look further at the data of regional breakdown of the votes and related trends, those people who voted for candidates other than Poroshenko and Zelenskiy are more likely to support Zelenskiy rather than Poroshenko in the run-off election on April 21. Perhaps, if there is a much-contested debate and Poroshenko really delivers a stellar performance, then that may make a difference. As for the international community, most people in Washington, D.C., would prefer Poroshenko for he has done a very good job on foreign policy. Despite its problems militarily over the last five years, he has strengthened Ukraine, prevented Russia from making further incursions, and implemented some reforms. Poroshenko is respected by foreign leaders, but having said that, there is still a long way to go and a lot of room for improvement. However, the way it works is the United States will respect the will of the people and if Zelenskiy is elected president, the U.S. will work with him as much as possible. These elections showed Ukraine's commitment to democracy and that is very important. No matter the results. It means Ukraine is moving in the Western democratic direction and not in in the direction of Russian autocracy. FF: How do you assess the Ukrainian people’s understanding of Zelenskiy’s platform? Was this purely a protest vote? OD: I think that is exactly right. Zelenskiy is a big unknown, a big gamble, and that is another reason why there is a bit of a caution about him in the West because he is to some extent a tabula rasa. He has certainly said some things here and there, but there is no concrete policy platform, yet it doesn’t really matter. The Ukrainian people signified that they are fed up and see Poroshenko as a part of the problem. They perceive Poroshenko as being a part of the old corrupt Ukraine, rather than the new Ukraine, where the rule of law is respected. People also especially have more expectations after the Euromaidan protests, and not all of those hopes have come to fruition. I am convinced that if Poroshenko would have moved more on the anti-corruption front in terms of strengthening the newly formed anti-corruption institutions, and if he would have been more resolute on an independent judiciary, he would not have been in his current situation. FF: Has there been any fear in Ukraine or any indication of potential election meddling? OD: There was a lot of fear beforehand and in the first round. Russian propaganda against Ukraine was certainly relentless, but that has been going on for a while, not only during the election cycle. The Russians were mocking the elections coming up with all sorts of fake news about all sorts of violations, and either exaggerating or telling outright falsehoods about our electoral process. However, it appears that they did not actually hack into anything, unlike in the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election. Also, with the West’s help, the Central Election Commission of Ukraine had established all sorts of systems to prevent election interference. FF: Turning to your experience as a Former Policy Advisor for Belarus, Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine at the U.S. Helsinki Commission, how do you think that potential change in Ukraine’s leadership will change U.S. foreign policy towards Ukraine? OD: That is a good question. I think the United States is about policies and principles. So, they will keep supporting Ukraine and encouraging it to move in the right direction of being a democratic, strong, secure, and independent country. The United States is not going to abandon Ukraine, especially given Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine, with the annexation of Crimea and the proxy war in parts of the Donbas. They are probably going to try to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty as much as possible, and help try to come up with a reasonable resolution to this war by continuing to provide assistance to Ukraine whether socially, economically, or militarily. However, the enthusiasm of this support may change if Ukraine finds itself under a new leadership—one that might see the country stop moving in the right direction in terms of democracy, anti-corruption, and rule of law. Image: Courtesy of spoilt.exile / Flickr Orest Deychakiwsky worked at the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission), an independent U.S. government agency, from November 1981 to May 2017. His country responsibilities throughout most of his tenure included Ukraine, Belarus and Bulgaria. Other country responsibilities, for shorter durations, included Romania, Moldova, Hungary. Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he served as casework supervisor, overseeing Soviet and Romanian emigration and family reunification cases and worked on Soviet political prisoner and other human rights issues. For many years, at varying times, he also held the positions of Intern Coordinator, NGO liaison, and Security Officer. Orest has observed nearly three dozen elections in nine countries, mostly as a member of U.S. delegations to OSCE Parliamentary Assembly international election observation missions. He took the lead or assisted in the drafting of Congressional bills, resolutions, speeches and authored many Helsinki Commission and other publications. Currently, Orest is Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation and a Senior Advisor at the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council. He is Co-Chair of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation’s Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN) Democracy and Civil Society Task Force. He writes a periodic column called “Focus on Washington” for The Ukrainian Weekly. Orest is the recipient of Ukraine’s State Order of Merit III Degree and several awards from the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine and Embassy of Ukraine to the United States, and an award from the Government of Bulgaria. He is also the recipient of various awards for his work from several organizations dealing with Ukraine and U.S-Ukraine relations, as well as from the Belarusian-American diaspora. Orest’s education earned him a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and an M.A. from Georgetown University in Government and International Relations. He speaks fluent Ukrainian and has a good working knowledge of Belarusian and Russian. /episode/index/show/fletcherforumpodcast/id/9796457

An Interview with Dr. Karen Donfried 04/15/2019

An Interview with Dr. Karen Donfried On February 28, 2019, Karen Donfried of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) spoke at The Fletcher School on the state of US-European relations in the age of the Trump presidency. This interview was conducted by Dan Scaduto and Nick Brown, Web Staff Editors with The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. FF: Could you briefly share your background, what your role at the German Marshall Fund (GMF) is, and what your strategic vision is for the organization moving forward? KD: I am a proud Fletcher grad! I did my MALD and PhD at Fletcher, then went on to work at the Congressional Research Service. I started out working on Capitol Hill as a European analyst, then went from there to GMF (the first time around). I was at GMF for two years before heading to the State Department to cover Europe on the policy planning staff for about two years. I returned to GMF and ultimately served as the #2 at GMF until I left to go into the Obama Administration. My last job there was on the National Security Council as the Senior Director for Europe. I now have the great privilege of leading GMF. GMF is a transatlantic organization that focuses on how we can strengthen cooperation between the United States and Europe in the spirit of the Marshall Plan. What do we mean by that? We mean in the spirit of this liberal international order based on democracy, free market economy, rule of law, and the rights of the individual. This is a tumultuous time to be working on transatlantic relations. We do this work from our headquarters in Washington and our seven offices across Europe (half of my staff is European), namely, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Warsaw, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Ankara. Our mix of programs is unusual. First, our oldest program focuses on leadership development. The crown jewel of that program is the Marshall Memorial Fellowship, which brings young, professional Europeans to the U.S. and sends young, professional Americans to Europe. Our selection committees have done an excellent job – our alumni even include Emmanuel Macron! Second, we support civil society in the Balkans and the Black Sea region; we believe a key part of democracy is having a vibrant civil society that holds government accountable, a concept that was not embraced in these previously communist countries. The third (and probably most well-known) basket of work is our policy work. We boast staff experts on NATO, on the European Union (EU), and on what a rising China means for the U.S. and Europe, who focus on policy-relevant research and analysis in their areas of expertise. Those are the two distinctive parts of GMF: our large geographic footprint plus the nature and mix of work that we do. FF: This is a very tumultuous time for the transatlantic relationship. On the U.S. side, you have President Trump railing against trade and against NATO. In Europe, you’ve got the rise of populism, Brexit, and the trouble a proud European like Macron is having. Can you touch on how you assess the current state of transatlantic affairs? For example, which problems do you believe to be more deep-rooted and structural and which could be solved in the next few years? KD: There are clear policy differences between the Trump Administration and many of our European allies on issues such as climate change, defense spending, and the relationship with Iran. There is a long list. I also think that many of the underlying trends that explain the rise of nationalist or authoritarian populism are very similar on both sides of the Atlantic. Our societies are experiencing a backlash from our citizens, who feel that they’ve been on the losing side of globalization. If I look the U.S., I see that Americans are suffering from income inequality and are concerned that their children won’t achieve, let alone surpass, the economic level they have secured. Many Americans are also concerned that their cultural identity is being frittered away by migration. On the other hand, while there are important national differences when you look across Europe, those two elements of economic insecurity and cultural identity are present and help explain the political turmoil that we see across the transatlantic space. I think we’re only going to be positive models for the rest of the world as functioning, liberal democracies if we solve those problems at home and in our own societies. FF: You previously mentioned that, even within the European Union, there are very deep-seated divides, especially in the political arena. What’s your prognosis as we head toward the European Parliament elections in May? On one side, you have pro-European advocates who champion integration. On the other, you have anti-EU advocates who support returning national sovereignty at the expense of that integration. KD: There are so many fault lines and divisions in the European Union today. Some of them are geographic – North-South, East-West; others are urban-rural or young-old. Can Europe bridge those divides? You’re absolutely right that we will have a first read on that after the May elections. The last time there were European Parliamentary elections, we saw EU citizens elect a Parliament that had 30% of its seats held by Euroskeptics. It’s really quite striking to think that you would run for the European Parliament for the sole purpose of trying to undermine it. At that time, I remember talking to a senior official in the European Parliament and saying: “You must be so concerned that 30% of the seats are held by Euroskeptics!” In response, he said, “Oh no, Karen. 70% are still held by people who believe in Europe.” We’re going to get an answer to my reply of “What about the trend line?” this May. In the end, we’ll see what the numbers are, but there’s no question that the skepticism around European integration and the European project is real, it’s growing, and European leaders have to think about how to make the case and demonstrate to their citizens that their quality of life is improving thanks to the existence of the European Union. It can’t be an argument based on nostalgia. While I do believe that European integration is a powerful reason why you haven’t had war again among these countries in Europe, I think that for the current European generation, that’s not compelling. They need to understand why European integration helps them economically, politically, and culturally today. I think there’s a robust case that European leaders can make, but they need to articulate it. FF: If I could pivot to security cooperation, the recent Munich Security Conference really highlighted the divisions that exist on issues like the Iran Nuclear Deal and how to respond to a rising China in Europe. What are the main fault lines in the security partnership between the US and Europe, with a focus on NATO and the context of President Trump’s criticisms of the Alliance? KD: What’s been most surprising to our European allies is that they thought they shared a view with the U.S. that alliances are enduring. That’s the power of the collective defense guarantee in the NATO charter. It doesn’t matter if I’m mad at you today; if you’re attacked, I’m there for you. The European view is that they have, in Donald Trump, an American president who sees an alliance as something transactional. That is undermining [NATO] Alliance cohesion because you have certain member states who feel deeply vulnerable because they border Russia and they believe that their security fundamentally depends on a U.S. security guarantee. They don’t want there to be any distance between them and the U.S., but they see that there are a whole set of issues where the gap is widening between U.S. policy and the policy that is being pursued by the European Union, which includes 22 NATO members, on issues like the Iran nuclear deal. It’s putting those vulnerable countries in a difficult position of straddling the divide. It is a very difficult moment in the transatlantic relationship. You saw those fault lines at the Munich Security Conference in the presentations that were made by the different speakers. That said, you also saw fifty members of the U.S. Congress go to Munich. That is the largest bipartisan Congressional delegation you have ever had attend the Munich conference. That says to me that there is still a deep reservoir of Americans who believe that U.S. interests are well-served by the alliance with Europe. The senators and representatives wanted to make the point that they will continue to be advocates for that alliance. FF: To pivot to another recent topic of interest, it seems that the idea of technological innovation has come into focus more sharply in Europe than it has in the United States. This week, the GMF launched the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative. Could you tell us a bit about that initiative’s vision and about what opportunities exist in this area for greater transatlantic cooperation? KD: This is a new program at GMF. I wish I could have started it even more quickly than we did because technology and digitalization are critical issues for the future of the transatlantic relationship. It is the age we have already entered and there are many elements of this debate around technology and digitalization that divide the U.S. and Europe. I was in government at the time of the Snowden disclosures, so I lived the debate over privacy versus security. There is concern in Europe about the big U.S. tech companies. Concern about how you regulate those companies. Therefore, I thought it was critical for GMF to make a contribution to that conversation between Americans and Europeans about how to forge a common policy. The reason that is so critical is because Americans and Europeans do share the same values around wanting to have an open and free Internet unlike Russia and China. If Americans and Europeans don’t agree on a common way forward that spells trouble for both sides of the Atlantic. The name of the Initiative is also important: the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative. Clearly, digital innovation is something that is incredibly positive, but it can also bring disruptive and even negative elements with it. How do we think about that when we live in democracies? It was that interplay between innovation and democracy which has a uniquely transatlantic flavor to it. That explains why we wanted to launch this Initiative at GMF. FF: Our penultimate question hinges on the idea that clear leadership in Europe appears absent with Merkel stepping down, Macron – who is a proud integrationist, but is clearly lacking in political capital at the moment— and then Britain, which is obviously leaving the bloc. If there is going to be a resurgence in cohesion, it seems to me that we need a new group of leaders to emerge that advocates for that. I’m wondering: what signs of optimism do you see and where do you see that leadership coming from in the near future? KD: You’re absolutely right that it feels like there is a lack of leadership in Europe right now. There had been such hope that, after Macron was elected in France and with the German election following shortly after, you might see this renewed Franco-German leadership at the core of the European Union. We now see that hasn’t quite played out the way that we had anticipated for domestic reasons in both of those countries. Now, along with having a European Parliament election in May, we also will see turnover in several European institutions. We’ll have a new President of the European Commission, we’ll have a new President of the European Council, and I think that the immediate hope is that you will see individuals stepping into those two roles who bring with them an inspiring vision of Europe’s future, along with lots of energy to pursue that vision, which can be compelling to European citizens. I think those will be important developments for us to keep our eyes on! FF: As you mentioned, you were an alum of the MALD and PhD programs here at Fletcher. We were wondering if you could share a bit about your experiences here and how they helped prepare you for your career, along with any advice you’d like to give current Fletcher students. KD: I obviously have a deep affinity for Fletcher. That’s why I was so delighted when Chris Miller asked me to come back and give a talk. I’ve been back a few times since I left and there are lots of reasons for that affinity. The most important is the people you meet and the relationships you forge. Those are both with other students, but also with professors. To speak to the student side of that dynamic, Fletcher has such a wonderful, international student body. I found that I learned a tremendous amount from my classmates, who came with different experiences from their home countries. My core group of friends in Washington [D.C.] continues to be a group of women that I went to Fletcher with. On the professorial side, I did a PhD here as well so I was able to forge some really deep ties to a small cohort of professors. Unfortunately, one of them has passed away, but the others are still doing very well and are still teaching. That represents another layer of connection to Fletcher. I always felt that it was a small enough place that you really could get to know your professors well and turn to them not only to help you learn the material you were studying, but also to serve as mentors as you enter the working world. I also feel grateful to Fletcher for the substantive knowledge I gained in the classroom. Part of that is related to the professors for sure, but part of it, too, is that you can study such a rich diversity of topics at Fletcher. For prospective students, my advice is to be really thoughtful before you begin your studies about what courses you want to take, because your time here goes by very quickly. It was a great opportunity for me to learn about international economics and international law, because those were topics that I had not studied deeply before coming to Fletcher. My advice for current students (and I say this as someone who now works for a non-profit, but spent a lot my career working in government) is that you may not make a lot of money working in public service, but there are lots of other benefits you will receive from serving in government. I say this because I think that government might not be such an attractive option for students at this moment in time. It’s so important that, no matter what country you’re from, we have a smart, motivated next generation going into government for the right reason of wanting to make a positive difference. I say that because the issues that you grapple with in government are not partisan issues. They’re not Democratic issues or Republican issues. They’re American issues. To have the smartest set of people wrestling with what the trade-offs are and what the risks are, trying to come up with the best policy recommendations, is a noble endeavor. Please don’t give up on government service. We need you – that next smart generation – to take up the mantle of resp Image: Courtesy of Tom Bech / Flickr Dr. Karen Donfried is president of the (GMF), a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening transatlantic cooperation through policy analysis, fellowships for next generation leaders, and support for civil society. GMF is headquartered in Washington, DC, and has seven offices in Europe. Before assuming her current role in April 2014, Dr. Donfried was the special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs on the National Security Council at the White House. In that capacity, she was the president’s principal advisor on Europe and led the interagency process on the development and implementation of the president’s European policies. Dr. Donfried has a PhD and MALD from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a Magister from the University of Munich, Germany. She holds a bachelor’s degree in government and German from Wesleyan University. Dr. Donfried is fluent in German. /episode/index/show/fletcherforumpodcast/id/9796460

Robin Chase on Transportation, the Platform Economy, and Peers Inc. 04/11/2019

Turkey and Greece: The Best of Frenemies 04/08/2019

Turkey and Greece: The Best of Frenemies by Ertan Karpazli On March 21, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu greeted his Greek counterpart George Katrougalos in the Turkish coastal city of Antalya as they met to turnaround strained ties between the two NATO allies. But while the diplomats may have embraced like two old friends, bubbling under the surface of smiles and handshakes lie two centuries of unresolved disputes. For Turkey, today’s problems from the attitude of the Greek Cypriot government in Cyprus, which enjoys international recognition at the expense of the Turkish Cypriots in the island’s breakaway north. The Greek Cypriots have wasted no time in offering licenses to US, French, Italian, Israeli, South Korean and Qatari energy firms for the exploration and exploitation of newly discovered hydrocarbon reserves around the island. The discoveries in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) declared by the Greek Cypriot government coincide with similar discoveries off the coasts of Israel and Egypt. Such finds have interested European gas importers looking to diversify their supplies away from Russia. Regional players in the Eastern Mediterranean have also initiated joint efforts to work out a route to the European market. In January, Egypt, Israel, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority (EMGF), which envisions an undersea pipeline to Europe. Having already agreed on the demarcation of their respective EEZs, member states effectively locked Turkey out. Using Greece’s easternmost outpost of Kastellorizo, an island just two miles off Turkey’s south-western coast, Athens extended its EEZ into what Ankara claims as Turkey’s continental shelf. Turkey therefore sees the EMGF as an intrusion on its rights. Nonetheless, a number of experts have already said the EMGF pipeline is nothing more than a , and a pipeline through Turkey is the only feasible route to Europe. Turkey, however, has demands. First, Turkey says Turkish Cypriots should be equal partners in deals made over Cyprus’ natural resources, and has countered Greek Cypriot unilateralism with its own drilling off the island. Negotiations to end the frozen conflict in Cyprus collapsed two years ago over Turkey’s insistence in maintaining the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee. The treaty granted Turkey, Greece and Britain, the right to intervene to safeguard the bicommunal power balance in Cyprus. It is upon this treaty that Turkey bases its legal argument for its presence in the island’s north since 1974. The treaty is highly unpopular among Greek Cypriots, who reject it as an outdated pact now replaced by EU guarantees. Turkish Cypriots, meanwhile, have long considered the treaty to be non-negotiable. However, on April 12, Katrougalos and Cavusoglu will meet in Greece to discuss possible alternatives. Before this, Turkey would have abruptly dismissed any suggestion of the treaty’s abrogation. So what changed? Well, economic woes aside, Turkey’s geopolitical aspirations have suffered years of setbacks. The ousting of Mohamed Morsi’s government in Egypt in 2013, the resurgence of the Assad regime in Syria, the rise of PKK-affiliated militants east of the Euphrates, an ongoing diplomatic crisis with Israel, stagnation in its EU accession process, and fall outs with NATO’s big brother the US have left Turkey with few options. Furthermore, the emergence of an anti-Turkish multinational bloc in the Mediterranean risks leaving Turkey regionally isolated. Yes, the EMGF project may be futile, with little chance of the Eastern Mediterranean reserves reaching international markets, but the idea alone is paving the way for EMGF states to boost cooperation in security. Early in March, Greek sources reported that Israel and Greece will start building a long-range marine radar in eastern Crete, most likely to serve as an early warning system against Turkish navy vessels in the Aegean. Also in March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced ahead of a meeting in Tel Aviv with his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras, Greek Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that Israel’s navy would be deployed to protect the EMGF pipeline. Similar warnings have also been issued by Egypt. Although these statements did not explicitly mention Turkey, they came after Turkish warships blocked drilling in the region with impromptu naval exercises. In late February, Turkey held the Blue Homeland war games in which it displayed its full naval prowess in the Black Sea, Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, seemingly to deliver a message to those seeking to box Turkey into the Bay of Iskenderun. Realistically, no single country in the region, with the exception of perhaps Egypt, can equal Turkey’s military strength in gunboat diplomacy, but a bloc of nations might. It could be argued that this is the real objective of the EMGF project, , who aim to keep Turkish influence out of Libya. However, without the support of the , which Pompeo could not promise during his trip to Tel Aviv, such a confrontation would likely remain at a stalemate. With both their cards laid out on the table, it seems Turkey and Greece are done testing each other’s reflexes. They can now begin down the roadmap to greater cooperation. Naturally, both sides will take cheap shots to gain leverage in talks, but for the most part, Athens and Ankara finally appear ready to set aside their differences, with regional peace proving more mutually advantageous than the status quo, or even further yet, all-out war. So, for better or worse, Turkey and Greece are likely to remain the best of frenemies. Image: Courtesy of Luc.T / Flickr Ertan Karpazli is a British journalist and political analyst based in London, Istanbul and Nicosia who specializes in geopolitical developments in and around the Eastern Mediterranean. His commentaries on the Cyprus peace talks and related issues have been published by TRT World, T-Vine, The New Turkey, Daily Sabah and Middle East Monitor. /episode/index/show/fletcherforumpodcast/id/9796463

Is Al-Qaeda Trying to Renew its Image by Focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict? 04/03/2019

Is Al-Qaeda Trying to Renew its Image by Focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict? by Asaf Day Over the past weeks, al-Qaeda has increased the frequency of its references to Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in its publications, from both the central command and local affiliates. Such new focus can likely be attributed to the organization’s attempts to win “the hearts and minds” of local residents in areas which the jihadist group operates, as it capitalizes on issues that are sensitive to the broad Muslim community. On January 20, in the wake of its , which resulted in the killing and wounding of dozens of troops, the al-Qaeda-affiliated group Jamaal Muskrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) issued a communique concerning the attack titled “al-Quds (Jerusalem) will never be Judaized.” According to the group, the attack on the Chadian soldiers was carried out in response to the . The group further mentioned the recent warming relations between the Israeli government and the President of Chad, Idriss Deby, which manifested into mutual visits by the two counties’ leaders. Notably, on January 20, the same day of JNIM’s attack, the Israeli prime minister held a visit in Chad’s capital N’Djamena to discuss security cooperation between Chad and Israel. An additional justification for the attack included Deby’s in the country, as well as his French-sponsored “institutionalized impoverishment and stagnation.” Additionally, on February 9, JNIM attempted to carry out a suicide vehicle-borne attack against a vehicle carrying French troops near northern Mali’s city of Timbuktu. While the group claimed that five French soldiers were killed in the attack, conflicting reports indicated that the troops were able to target the bomber before he reached them, . Several days after the attempted attack, the group of the suicide bomber with al-Aqsa Mosque in the background of the photo. Just a few days before the aforementioned attack on the Chadian troops, al-Shabab, al-Qaeda’s Somalia-based affiliate, conducted a on the Dusit Complex, an upscale hotel and business area in Kenya’s Nairobi, which is frequented regularly by foreign nationals. Similarly to JNIM, on January 20, al-Shabab under the title “al-Quds [Jerusalem] will never be Judaized,” claiming that the assault was directed by al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman Zawahiri and aimed at targeting “Western and Zionist interests.” Furthermore, the group stated that the assault was carried out in “support of our Muslim families in Palestine.” In late January, the organization’s central command praising the launching of the “al-Quds will never be Judaized” operations. Unsurprisingly, al-Qaeda drew a connection between the assaults and Israeli control over Jerusalem, claiming that the group's affiliates targeted the “Zionist-Crusader Intelligence” headquarters and their related private security companies in Nairobi. As for the attack in Mali, like JNIM’s claim of responsibility, al-Qaeda stated that it was carried out in response to Chad’s “normalization” with the “Zionist entity,” as it corresponded with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to the country. The recent surge in publications related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the status of Jerusalem underlines Zawahiri organization’s effort to capitalize on recent events concerning issues which are of great importance to Muslim communities across the globe. These include the status of Jerusalem, the Israeli-Palestinian issue, regimes which are perceived to be oppressive to Muslims, and historical tensions surrounding Western Colonial rule. By linking these issues with the latest attacks, the Sunni jihadist militant group seeks to tap local Muslims’ sentiments to attract . Furthermore, the relations between Israel and such regimes, namely Sunni-Arab and Muslim-African nations, which are already perceived as by large parts of the local populace, are being exploited by Zawahiri’s organization to slander and delegitimize these rulers (such leaders are often described by jihadist elements as Taught, largely meaning “tyrant”). This, in turn, may potentially push the local populations in these areas further toward the hands of al-Qaeda’s affiliates. In addition, al-Qaeda’s efforts to appeal to local Muslim populations are further demonstrated by the group’s to these countries’ colonial histories, capitalizing on the heightened tensions regarding the matter among locals, particularly in East and West Africa. By linking all these issues together, the jihadist organization’s publications suggest that it strives to convey an image of local residents as being under attack in a similar fashion to other Muslim communities across the globe, with the Palestinian issue standing at the forefront. This is illustrated by the photo released by al Qaeda depicting the perpetrator of the February 9 attack against the French forces with al-Aqsa Mosque at the background. Similarly, of the perpetrators of the February 24 assault on a European Union base in Mali’s Bamako, with the mosque behind them. Meanwhile, the above mentioned assaults and publications should also be considered in the context of increased competition between al-Qaeda’s affiliates and the Islamic State in Africa and Yemen, with both groups stepping up their activity in such regions over the past months. For instance, from September 2018 until November 2018, the Islamic Sate’s West Africa Province conducted 22 confirmed attacks, while from December 2018 to February 2019 al-Baghdadi’s organization carried out 58 confirmed attacks. In this context, the recent uptick in references to Jerusalem and the Palestinians likely serve to portray al-Qaeda as the more capable jihadist group in the eyes of radicalized elements throughout the globe. The existing criticism of the two organizations’ alleged inaction around Israel’s perceived oppressive policies towards the Palestinians further supports this reasoning. This also enables al-Qaeda to claim the title of “defenders of the .” Such title could further be utilized to attract potential recruits at the expense of the Islamic State, particularly amidst the latter’s decline. In conclusion, the publications continue to demonstrate Zawahiri organization’s sensitivities to prevailing narratives in the Islamic World, as well as to current events that may impact the public opinion. Furthermore, the releases also show the group’s attempt to connect events carrying a local nature to a broader global narrative regarding the Ummah’s posture. Therefore, as al-Qaeda has limited ability to carry out direct acts of militancy against Israeli targets, any developments concerning Jerusalem and Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be a catalyst for further al-operations against pro-Western and Israel-friendly entities in regions where the group is active. Image: Courtesy of Kristoffer Trolle / Flickr Asaf Day is a Middle East and North Africa geopolitical analyst at a private security-consultancy firm. His areas of expertise include Syria, Israel, and the Palestinians, as well as global jihad organizations. Asaf has an MA Degree in Arabic Studies from the University of Bar Ilan and a BA from Ben Gurion University, both in Israel. In addition to English, Asaf speaks fluent Hebrew and Arabic, as well as Turkish and French to a lesser degree. /episode/index/show/fletcherforumpodcast/id/9796466

Dr. Michael Beckley on Why China is Far From Becoming the World’s Superpower 03/29/2019

Why Sri Lanka Could Determine U.S. Foreign Policy in South Asia 03/25/2019

Why Sri Lanka Could Determine U.S. Foreign Policy in South Asia by Srimal Fernando and Yashodha Rathnayake It has been seventy-one years since Sri Lanka entered into formal relations with the United States. Since then, a new line on thinking on U.S.-Sri Lankan relations has emerged in foreign policy circles. Sri Lanka may have been viewed as a tiny and dispensible island nation in the past, but today it is seen as a strategic maritime asset that can potentially counterbalance China’s rapidly growing influence in the region. Given its position in the Indian Ocean Rim, it would be a mistake for the United States to discount Sri Lanka’s strategic importance to U.S. policy in the region, and stronger bilateral relations between the two countries may define the partnership of the 21stcentury. pass the coast of Sri Lanka. India and China, the fastest emerging nations based on GDP, lie to the north and east of this tiny island nation. To its south and east are the key nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and not far from its western shore lies the untapped potentials of the African continent and the oil-rich countries of the Middle East. As an active member of the twenty-two-member-state Indian Ocean Rim Association, Sri Lanka's ocean economy and possession of the world’s fifth-largest natural deep-water harbor at Trincomalee makes strengthening relations with Sri Lanka an attractive option. Once occupied by the British Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, the location of the harbor, its updated infrastructure, and vast oil-storage capacity gives further impetus for revising the diplomatic orientation between the United States and Sri Lanka. The development assistance extended to Sri Lanka since 1956 is a clear indication of the special importance Washington attaches to the nation. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) reports the bilateral development aid was . In recent years, Sri Lanka has enjoyed favorable economic conditions conducive to trade, tourism, and investment as a result of this development aid. Bilateral trade between Sri Lanka and the —export figures from its garment industry alone stands at . Sri Lanka’s economic expansion points to a phenomenal potential for further growth. For Sri Lanka, the last seven decades of trade with and aid from the United States has enabled it to economically grow and in turn, make huge investments into upgrading and constructing new infrastructure. The outcomes of these efforts can be a huge potential benefit for the US as it builds its long-term security strategy to counter China’s expanding influence in the Indian Ocean. India, South Asia’s largest nation and a close ally of the US, is already pushing for stronger ties with its southern neighbor, Sri Lanka, under its “Neighborhood First” foreign policy doctrine. India’s in the next few years will naturally have a spillover effect on Sri Lanka, presenting further opportunities for the US to engage in this region. Trade instruments such as the South Asian Free Trade Area and the Indo-Sri Lanka Free Trade agreements are some of the gainful tools with which the US can use to access South Asia’s consumer markets. Forging realistic and pragmatic positions on regional issues can lead to stronger cooperation and enhance relations between the US, Sri Lanka, India and other South Asian nations by making use of these benefits. These developments will not only strengthen economic ties between the U.S. and its South Asian allies, but also the defense agenda in this region. Maritime peace and stability are vital to the growth, progress and security of the region and to this effect, the U.S. Navy has announced the establishment of a strategic logistic hub on the island for U.S. Navy operations in the Indian Ocean. To be sure, there are still significant challenges Sri Lanka must overcome, particularly the inconsistent nature of its relations with the United States, which has been disrupted since 2012 for various reasons. One that stands out was a controversial but American-backed 2009 United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCRby theSri Lankan military against the Tamil Tigers during the last phases of the Sri Lankan civil war. This resolution increasingly isolated Sri Lanka from its Western allies and ultimately led to a change in government in 2015. After reaching its lowest point during President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s tenure, relations between Sri Lanka and the U.S. are now regaining momentum and significantly advancing with President Maithripala Sirsena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe at the helm. Making predictions about the future of U.S.-Sri Lankan relations is a challenging task. However, there is little doubt that Sri Lanka holds substantial priority in America’s national security agenda, especially with the growing Chinese influence in South Asia. The implementation of this far-sighted South Asian foreign policy requires the involvement of shared responsibilities between various agencies in both Sri Lanka and the United States, which will create the necessary preconditions for the U.S. to secure a stronger foothold on the island nation. Image: Courtesy of dronepicr / Flickr Srimal Fernando is a Ph.D. Research Scholar from Sri Lanka pursuing his doctoral research on “Political and Economic Integration in South Asia: A Prerequisite for Regional Community Building” at the Indian Jindal School of International Affairs (JSIA) in India. He was the winner of the 2017 prestigious O.P Jindal Scholarship in India. Previously, he was awarded the South Asian University (SAU) Research Scholarship from 2014 to 2016. He completed his Masters in Philosophy (M Phil) in Sociology from South Asian University (SAU) established under the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Fernando also holds a Masters of Arts (MA) degree in Public Policy and Development Studies from Sri Lanka. Recently he won the 2018/2019 Best Journalist of the year award in South Africa and is the Global editor of Diplomatic Society of South Africa. Yashodha Rathnayake is a Sri Lankan scholar who is currently pursuing her Bachelors of Arts degree (Hons) in English at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Languages, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka. She is a third year honours undergraduate scholar following classics , linguistics ,translation studies and several other language courses. In addition to her undergraduate studies, she is currently a foreign policy analyst and a regular co-author for several diplomatic publications. She is an expert on trade diplomacy and security issues in the Indian ocean arc. Her current diplomatic focus on South Asian regional affairs combined with Sri Lanka's emerging foreign policy outlook has led to several scholarly features with the Indian-based Sri Lankan PhD Research scholar attached to JSIA in India. Currently, her main focus is on international affairs surrounding the South Asian region and on small island states like Sri Lanka and the Maldives. /episode/index/show/fletcherforumpodcast/id/9796469

Russia's Intent 03/21/2019

Russia's Intent by Amit K. Chhabra and Brent Robinson Russian foreign policy appears to be driven by offensive realism. Offensive realists believe that is central to ensuring security. Russia’s annexation of Crimea is a clear example of offensive realism. The pretenses—including alleged threats against ethnic Russians—belied Russia’s true intents: the projection of naval power; access to warm-water ports in Sevastopol, Crimea, and Syria; and pushing back against NATO. Russian desperation for a warm-water port is borne of its . To the west, the North European Plain has served as the stage for many European invasions of Russia and remains Russia’s primary Achilles heel. The majority of Russians reside on the plains west of the Ural Mountains, so in order to limit NATO’s freedom of maneuver on its border (given NATO’s strategic depth, strong economies, institutions and military might), Russia desires a buffer zone to . To the east, Vladivostok, Russia’s largest port, freezes during the winter and is encircled by Japan (a notable U.S. ally and member of the Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue). Also, with NATO’s domination of the Mediterranean Sea and Bosporus Strait, Russia’s ability to maneuver in the Black Sea and from ports in Syria is . The “GIUK gap,” traditionally used by NATO to hinder Russian access to the Atlantic Ocean, is currently being refurbished with the U.S. allocating USD 14.4 million to in Iceland. Thus, maritime access is a major strategic concern for Russia. In the same vein, Russia’s latest describes NATO as its primary—and most lethal—adversary. NATO, with a defense budget of . To manage this imbalance, Russia is building 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched missiles, eight Borei-class nuclear submarines, updating its , and is developing low-yield nuclear weapons while also attempting to equipment by 2020. However, these expenditures may also cause long-term significant economic strain on ordinary Russians. Having faced Western sanctions, an aging population, and low oil prices over the past few years, Russia’s . The World Bank predicts that oil prices will increase to , but it also predicts a nominal growth rate of in the same year. Additionally, incomes have fallen since 2014 and the . With FDI inflows currently at 1.5 percent of GDP, the global community appears skeptical of . These challenges have created consternation in the Kremlin. Feeling encircled by a Western-led international order—which they see as inherently anti-Russian—Russian leaders appear determined to expand their sphere of influence and enhance their national security by adopting a policy of aggression on the international stage. The goal is to achieve a long-sought strategic aim: the ability to maintain its naval forces and to access global trade routes without concern for the seasonal freezing and thawing of ports in Russia proper. Defensive realists, by contrast, assert that a power-maximizing hegemonic policy upsets fellow states’ security—and thus one’s own security—insofar as it generates power competitions that disturb the balance-of-power equilibrium. This perspective explains why Russia soft balances Western influence by remaining diplomatically active but keeps its hard balancing external adventures limited and selective. Russia’s soft balancing efforts are aimed, in part, at providing it legitimacy as a great power. Indeed, Russia appears to prefer involvement through the United Nations except where it cannot achieve consensus. It regularly exercises its veto power at the UN Security Council on behalf of itself and allies and participates in economic development initiatives at the UN Development Program. Moreover, it leads mediation engagements, including with former Soviet satellite rival states Armenia and Azerbaijan as part of the Minsk Group’s efforts to resolve the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. To improve its reputation for goodwill—and, thus, legitimacy—Russia also hosted the 2018 World Cup and the recent 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. At the same time, Russia eschews most opportunities for unilateral involvement unless and until it can tilt a regional power balance to advance a core national security interest. It only acts where a “low-hanging fruit” can be gathered, i.e., where resistance is minimal as in Crimea. Moreover, the offensive realist/hegemonic view of Russian activity is confined to the former Soviet Union’s constituent states and vicinity (i.e., its own neighborhood). Throughout Russia’s history prior to as well as during the Cold War, the Soviets largely avoided acting directly outside of this zone except to encourage communism abroad, particularly in China, Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba. An argument can be made—and —that Russia’s actions in its zone today merely reflect its diminished control over, and thereby less geostrategic access to resources in, its own former western frontier which broke away to find democracy and left behind a smaller buffer zone with Europe. Consistent with this perspective, we should expect to see Russia behaving in an isolationist fashion except in situations of vital strategic concern, which tend to be in its own neighborhood. Is Russia indeed isolationist in its foreign policy? Freedom House seems to think so, continuing to list it as a Nation in Transit and ranking it as one of the world’s least-democratic countries with progressively lower annual scores on corruption, democratic governance, electoral process, civil society, an independent media, and judicial framework. It certainly feels “closed” in the sense that it reserves the option to exclude or pre-select its visitors by forbidding landing visas to U.S. passport-holders and other nationals. When attempting to spontaneously visit Moscow on a flight layover last year, the author found that Russia required advance visas; only China remains this restrictive. The next visit—including an expedition to the majestic Mount Elbrus—would need to be pre-booked and organized by a local travel agency that registers all activities with the government. This sounds a bit draconian, in contrast to Argentina’s relatively lax controls for prospects of Aconcagua. Though the Russian Federation’s actions in Ukraine and Syria appear outrageous, if we see them through the lens of a former great power that is enamored with its own history and longs to return to greatness, we find ourselves faced with an irredentist. To achieve a return to glory, Russia will try anything. It is thus undertaking the aforementioned initiatives to increase and project its power. However, it is carrying out these initiatives with the confidence of a former superpower, and attempting to select low-resource, high-impact actions to heighten its threat perception to Western powers. At the same time, Russia is internally balancing to maximize its own resource-extraction potential. As discussed above, annexing Crimea represents Russia’s efforts to safeguard its energy security by accessing Sevastopol to access oil reserves in the Black Sea. Historically, the Soviets had such access when Ukraine was a constituent socialist republic. If Russia can successfully regain access, it will reap the benefits of full occupation without the obligations of governance and administration. Similarly, Russia desires to gain access to Mediterranean trade routes via its Syrian intervention without a direct or lasting investment in the continued administration of the Syrian state. Russia has also attempted to internally balance by opening its financial markets to capitalism, hoping that the open market will lead to a more-robust economy. Its limited success is perhaps due to the effectiveness of Western sanctions. These acts are consistent with defensive realist tenets to avoid power hegemonies that threaten the balance of power. Thus, Russia is staying in its own neighborhood, not attempting to annex former Soviet republics or spread its influence abroad in a hegemonic campaign for influence in the West. As it already has plenty of territory that it has not yet sought to fully exploit, it is not aiming to maximize territorial gain. Rather, Russia is attempting to selectively obtain access to energy resources and weaken its competitors, such as through a low-cost cyberwar against Western governments, including the United States. It is playing the same game, but slightly smarter in lieu of its limited resources. From this perspective, the U.S. and Western allies should see Russia as a stabilizing influence that wants to reinvigorate its buffer zone with Europe. Image: Courtesy of United States Navy / Wikimedia Commons Amit K. Chhabra has lectured on International Law and Security subjects since 2012, including geopolitics, sanctions, national security and international law. His articles have appeared in the Fordham Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, Boston University International Law Journal, Foreign Policy Journal and The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. He obtained his law degree from the University of Notre Dame and his bachelor’s degree in History from Cornell University. He lives and practices law in New York City. Brent Robinson is an international risk analyst at a major financial institution. He holds a master of international policy and practice from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, a master of laws degree from New York Law School and a bachelor of laws degree from the University of Kent in England. Brent resides in New York City and writes about international politics and business on his website . /episode/index/show/fletcherforumpodcast/id/9796475

An Interview with Ambassador Alexander Evans 03/18/2019

An Interview with Ambassador Alexander Evans On November 7, 2018, South Asia specialist and British diplomat Ambassador Alexander Evans gave a talk at The Fletcher School on the topics of India and great power politics in Eurasia. This interview was conducted by Lukas Bundonis and Laura Handly, Web Staff Editors with The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. FF: Could you tell us about the current great power politics in Eurasia and the key points of tension we're seeing? AE: In terms of Asian geopolitics, I think the key factor at the moment is uncertainty. We've moved from an extremely predictable 20thcentury framework based on the Cold War thatwas superimposed on Asia, into a post-Cold War period where it looked like we might see a new framework based on norms and rules derived from a lack of nationalism and a lack of disputes. Perhaps, as we hit the tail end of the 20thcentury, this new framework has given way to a new realism about the way in which the world operates. That doesn't mean we're back to nationalism and conflict and war, but it means that we're back to diplomacy and hedging and uncertainty. This is happening across Asia not just between the big states, but also with the smaller states in the continent. In fact, you can often see it more visibly when you're sitting in a small state rather than a big state. FF: Both the United States and Russia have significant economic ties to India. How well is India navigating the competition between these two forces, and how could it better leverage its position? AE: India is a remarkably successful diplomatic actor, and I think one example of that is the way it has managed to combine much improved relations with the United States since the1990s while still maintaining good relations with Russia. There are times when that comes into sharp relief. For example, how is India going to respond to a situation like Syria or a situation like Crimea? But I think for India, Russia is an important part of the Asian geopolitical space. India is always attentive to what Russia and China are doing together, and it doesn't want to see Russia and China move far closer together because to a certain extent, India fears that if this happens, it might be at India's expense. Despite these concerns, I do think India navigates these relationships well. You see that diplomatic practice also in evidence in the Middle East, where India enjoys good relations with Israel, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatarand the UAE. That’s quite an impressive achievement. FF: Earlier this year, Prime Minister Modi and President Putin were in Sochi, where they declared the relationship between India and Russia to be a special privileged strategic partnership. What are your thoughts on what this relationship looks like in practice as well as its significance for Eurasian geopolitics? AE: As I said before, the Russia-India relationship is important to both parties. However, what has changed in many ways is the social connection between Indians and Russians, which has diminished compared to what it was before. As I understand it, there are fewer Indian students going to Russia than perhaps at the peak period in the Soviet Union. But the Russia-India relationship is still a warm relationship for understandable reasons on both sides. When trying to anticipate what that relationship will look like in the future, I think you need to step back and think about Asia as a whole and the world as a whole. For India, the difficult choices will be in navigating its relations with Russia along with China, Japan, the United States, Australia, and the Middle East. When you have a lot of partners who may not have similarly warm bilateral relations with each other, there are sometimes going to be hard diplomatic choices to make. The real test for India in the future is going to be when it is asked to make those judgment calls, and equally that will be a test for Russia if Russia had to choose, for example, between China and India in a future stage. FF: Turning now to your considerable experience as a British diplomat, how do you assess the current state of British diplomacy? What major challenges does Britain face? AE: Well, unsurprisingly, as a British diplomat, I'm paid to be very warm about Britain, so I'm going to say something quite positive about this. I think it's a really exciting time to be a diplomat because of three reasons. One, diplomacy is alive and kicking, even in the 21stcentury when many people said that diplomacy is dead. It’s more relevant today than it has been for many years because of geopolitical uncertainty in the world, and because of the relevance of political risk in judgments that frame so many different parts of national policy—from cyber to economics to trade regulation to matters of war and peace. Second, the British diplomatic service is going for its biggest expansion since World War II. We’re growing by more than 300 diplomats overseas, as well as opening 11 new embassies and missions around the world. This is all happening against a backdrop where we're already present in most countries in the world. Third, diplomacy is increasingly being organized around campaigns. It’s no longer just about traditional interstate diplomacy, public diplomacy or consular work. We now have to think morecreatively about how we form coalitions to advance progress on particular issues that matter to us. Recent examples of that include the campaign against sexual violence inconflict, the campaign against illegal wildlife trade, and a growing commitment to a campaign against plastics in oceans. These are areas where we think our role as diplomats can help forge new consensus and new action against these challenges. In terms of challenges for diplomacy, I think these will be manifold. Part of it is going to be navigating a post-Brexit global Britain and reestablishing what Britain will do in the world as an actor that is no longer a member of the European Union. I feel confident and positive about that. However, I think a big part of it is going to depend on how we negotiate on issues such as cyber regulation, where we’ll have to work with countries that may not see eye to eye with us on some of the problems around this issue. FF: What advice would you give to the new generation of diplomats given that there are new challenges and maybe even new frameworks to deal with them? AE: I think some of the qualities of an effective diplomat remain consistent with the qualities that were needed 50 or even 100 years ago. Diplomats should still have the ability to listen as much as they speak. They certainly need to be endlessly curious about people and issues in today’s world. Most importantly, diplomats must still be able to build extensive networks beyond government and not just engage in building relationships with other diplomats. All professional communities can become inward-looking, closed groups but one of the greatest challenges in the world is surprise. We can be surprised by the way in which events turn out, we can be surprised by new technologies, we can be surprised by circumstances. So, against that backdrop where we know surprise to be a reality of international affairs, we may not be able to prevent surprise, but we can mitigate its effects by building out horizontally extensive networks as diplomats and as diplomatic services by ensuring that we're properly challenging established wisdom and established policies as we provide advice to the political principals who make decisions. Image: Courtesy of Presidential Press and Information Office (Russia) / Alexander Evans is a senior official in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He served as British Deputy High Commissioner to India from 2015-2018, and was Acting High Commissioner in 2015-2016. Previously he served as a British diplomat in Islamabad and as a member of the Policy Planning Staff in London. He also served as a senior advisor to Ambassador Marc Grossman and to the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Evans was also the 2011 Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress. Before joining the British diplomatic service, he worked with a number of think tanks and in management consultancy and journalism. He has published widely, including in Foreign Affairs and The Economist, and been a frequent media commentator. A visiting senior research fellow at King's College London, Evans is a past fellow of Yale and Oxford. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2010. /episode/index/show/fletcherforumpodcast/id/9796478

Lessons from the Iraq War: A Conversation with Colonel Frank Sobchak 03/06/2019

An Interview with Professor Wael Hallaq 03/04/2019

An Interview with Professor Wael Hallaq This interview was conducted by Fatima Taskomur, Web Staff Editor of The Fletcher Forum. FF: How does your book, Restating Orientalism, critique Edward Said’s Orientalism, and expand his argument to other fields? What didn’t Said address, and how do you address these? WH: To answer your question, I want to begin with the blurb’s statement that Restating Orientalism is concerned with “re-evaluating,” “deepening,” and “extending” the critique of Orientalism. Let me begin with the last of the trio, “extending,” but let me insert a caveat first. At one level, I could not even begin to extend Said’s critique when he, like almost every scholar engaged in such matters, applies the term indiscriminately, almost to any idea or person writing about anything Islamic, Asian or African. Said erroneously thought that Orientalists are to be found everywhere, from ancient Greece to thirteenth century Latin scholars, to von Grunebaum, Bernard Lewis and their likes in the twentieth century. So it is not true that I extend the critique in any of these directions. If anything, in fact, I limit its diachronic scope, I reign it in, and refuse to accept its sweeping historical coverage. There was no Orientalism before modernity, not even in the high cultures of antiquity who, according to Said, were also “racist.” […] I may even counter by deploying an equally categorical statement: “No matter how ethnocentric and how dominating pre-modern empires all were, none could wed knowledge to power and redefine ethics as our modern empires did and continue to do.” But how do I extend the critique, which I in fact do? First, in order to show why it is a modern phenomenon, I deepen the exploration into the genealogy of modern knowledge in order to excavate a structure of thought that is – as a hegemonic structure -- unprecedented in human history. Second, because this structure is a foregrounding structure, it obviously did not just sit under the field of Orientalism alone. If the structure foregrounds modern thinking and ways of living in the world, then it radiates onto all disciplines, especially the ones formed by this structure as paradigms. This is the accurate meaning of “expanding the critique” in the blurb. I see engineering, economics, business schools, journalism, law schools, mainstream philosophy, science, medicine, and a host of others as being epistemologically structured in the same manner in which Orientalism was fashioned. The major difference, from this perspective, is the substantive content of each discipline. Orientalism is the most obvious field for the study of the other, even more so than anthropology, and it is here, in Orientalism, where racism, manipulation, control, domination, and sovereignty show themselves most obviously. My argument, furthermore, is also that showing and practicing sovereignty over a Hindu or a Muslim in Asia is not very different from showing and exercising sovereignty over a tree or a river in the forests of Peru or Ecuador. I call each instance an epistemological “genetic slice” where the totality of such instances amounts to a unique but structured modern attitude toward the world. Said navigated at the political level of racism, pejorative language, and exoticizing the Orient, but could not see that what is involved in the production of Orientalism was nothing short of a deeper, underlying structure of thought from which he could not extricate his own thought. To critique Orientalism is to critique secular humanism, liberalism, anthropocentrism, materialism, capitalism -- all of which, and more, Said took for granted. FF: What is the relationship between ‘the west’, modernity, knowledge and power? Could you elaborate on the relationship between orientalism and colonialism? WH: I think it is important to understand that modernity is not a continuous trajectory with what preceded it. Modernization theory continues unabated in almost every academic field. This theory, foundational to writing and making history, operates on the assumption of what I have labelled a “theology of progress.” The theology is founded on the assumption that time has a homogeneous teleological structure, that this structure is inevitable, and that the earliest phases of history were preparatory for the later ones, which were in turn simply the means to reach the intended summit of real human progress: Western modernity. Integral to this understanding is that no culture or “civilization” outside of and prior to modern Europe possessed the same validity, competence, and moral and intellectual development. Whatever these civilizations had possessed of value, culturally or otherwise, was consumed in the process of preparing for a higher goal, outside and beyond themselves. The goal was Western modernity, which was imposed on the world by colonialism, coercion, and hegemony. Even if we were to concede—however objectionable and repugnant this may be— that modernity’s violent tools were adopted by necessity with a view to improving the human condition, we find ourselves facing the bitter reality of a world in which we have destroyed almost everything around us, from communal and social structures to ecology and environment. What many do not seem to understand is that all this is integral to modernity as a particular project, as a particular epistemology which has dictated a particular set of practices, all of which are the work of a particular subject, a particular subjectivity. My argument is that modernity’s structure of thought created a novel relationship between man and nature, one that produced a pathological sense of domination over nature, including our own. Colonialism did not start in the colonies, but in Europe itself, and this is because early modern Europe embarked on a quest in which knowledge was systematically harnessed to subjugate nature, including our own selves. Orientalism is nothing more than a strand of discourse by which this bleak result was achieved, but every branch of knowledge – philosophy, science, law, etc.– is equally involved in the same project. That modernity now is everywhere in the world should not hide the fact of its European origins. The reader is advised to read the book for a detailed account of how all this happened. FF: Could you speak a little more about this type of critique? Is it possible to address and confront the epistemic structures of modernity? WH: My short answer is a resounding Yes. I think that the position which argues that one cannot critique modernity from within modernity—necessarily the only place in which we find ourselves— is a nihilistic one. It is both historically and epistemologically untenable. Historically, because every piece of evidence points to the undeniable fact that systems and cultures and “civilizations” are not only in constant change, but they come and go. Modernity came at the heel of European Christendom, just as Islam came at the heel of Persian and Byzantine empires, and Greece before it displaced Pharaonic Egypt and Phoenicia. Each one of these “civilizational constellations” was epistemologically and culturally unique, each with a particular way of seeing the world. To say that modernity is the end of history is sheer foolishness. Epistemologically, because our forms of knowledge have done us a great deal of disservice. To say the least, we have destroyed the very Earth we live on, our home, and this is because we no longer know who we are. So the question is how do we go about exiting this situation? In Restating Orientalism and [my] new book to appear next year, Reforming Modernity , I argue that our only hope is to develop what I call an external critique, which does not mean that we can speak from outside modernity. To speak from within modernity is inescapable. In my earlier The Impossible State, I developed the concept of central and peripheral domains, both of which must exist in all cultures and “civilizations.” For example, in modernity, the state, capitalism, bureaucracy, and a particular form of reason have become central domains that govern all other domains. These central domains have formed our subjectivities, and made us who we are. My argument is that we can capitalize on the peripheral domains, through an act of heuristic retrieval, in order to displace the central domains. And ethics is one peripheral domain from which we can begin to rethink who we are. In the time and space we have here, I cannot of course tell you what the details and modalities of this project are, but the three works I have referred to above begin this continuing project. FF: What does your work entail for academia, and for students of social sciences or public policy specifically? WH: I think there are at least three dimensions to my writings over the past ten years or so, which has so far been the culmination of earlier work on law, philosophy, ethics, and epistemology – work that has spanned the three preceding decades. The first dimension is the urgent call for us to be self-conscious about what we are doing at large and what we are “saying” and writing in learning institutions, higher academia being a main concern. This is so because this academia manufactures much of what we know, and this manufactured knowledge has substantial power in deciding what we should or should not do in our lives. Essential to this self-consciousness is the need for us to understand and develop a deep sense of responsibility and accountability, [and] not in the narrow sense of being “conscientious citizens” or socially responsible individuals. What I mean is that responsibility and accountability must run deep into an awareness of everything we do, from the seemingly innocuous act of buying a soft drink from a convenience store to what we think of what, say, business and public policy mean to less powerful others around the world. Yet, this awareness of deep responsibility toward the rest of the world and toward the nature that sustains us will not just develop and come about on its own. Like everything else, this needs lots of work. And it is here where academia can play a central role in educating the public, which is the second dimension. My work is calling on us to rethink not just what we do, how we do things, and what measures we should take to minimize damage to ourselves (as human beings everywhere) and to the environment. We often talk, for instance, about emission control, recycling, and the promotion of human rights in this or that country. I think all this is an external maneuvering, a bandage solution that is both superficial and unwise. My recent work […] has been arguing that there is no way to reach a genuine solution unless it begins from within ourselves. If we want to change the world, we need first to change ourselves, our subjectivities, our ways of thinking, or as [Reforming Modernity] argues, we need a new concept of the human. Finally, the third dimension is that to make the change and to build a sense of ethical responsibility, academia must deploy what I call external critique of everything we teach and write about. External critique is to refuse the established premises and assumptions that have so far foregrounded our thoughts and actions; it is to refuse the very foundations of their logic. The critique must question who and what we are. Image: Cover of by Professor Wael B. Hallaq Wael Hallaq is the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches Islamic law, ethics and intellectual history. He is the author of more than 70 scholarly articles and books including Ibn Taymiyya Against the Greek Logicians (Oxford, 1993); A History of Islamic Legal Theories (Cambridge, 1997); Authority, Continuity and Change in Islamic Law (Cambridge, 2001); Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge, 2005); and Shari’a: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge 2009). His latest work, Restating Orientalism was published by Columbia University Press in 2018, and his The Impossible State (2013) has won Columbia University Press’ Distinguished Book Award for 2013-2015. Hallaq’s work has been widely debated and translated into Arabic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Persian, Turkish and Urdu, among others. /episode/index/show/fletcherforumpodcast/id/9796481

An Interview with Mr. Fred Kempe of the Atlantic Council 02/25/2019

An Interview with Mr. Fred Kempe of the Atlantic Council This interview was conducted by Siobhan Heekin-Canedy, Web Staff Editor of The Fletcher Forum. FF: As a journalist with the Wall Street Journal you covered some of the most historic events of the twentieth century, including the reunification of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Have these experiences shaped the way that you’ve approached your role at the Atlantic Council, and if so how? FK: They absolutely have influenced my work at the Atlantic Council, and also my choice to come here in the first instance. I was at the Wall Street Journal for more than twenty-five years and, as you say, I had the good fortune to do what the Washington Post publisher Philip Graham famously called, “Writing the first draft of history.” When you’re there on the ground floor you really see the way things unfold, and you see the way that at history’s inflection points, determined individuals and countries have outsized influence. The period that really shaped my life was the Cold War, and particularly its end, starting with the labor strikes in Poland that I covered in 1980 through to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. I came to believe in the power of American influence and power, when properly applied alongside allies. And that, of course, is what the Atlantic Council is entirely about. Over time as an objective journalist I lost some of that objectivity, and I came to believe deeply in the potential of America to do good in the world and to shape the world positively. Conversely, I also came to appreciate the potential for America to have a bad influence when we’re disengaged and make the wrong decisions. I wanted to be more active in working on the policies that promoted constructive U.S. engagement in the world alongside allies. So that’s why I’m here at the Atlantic Council. FF: I know that Germany is a country you remain very focused on and involved with. Could you comment on Angela Merkel’s recent announcement that she will be stepping down? What do you think the future holds for Germany post-Merkel? FK: I see Germany being central to the European future, just as it was leading up to both world wars. Germany is just as important now in determining whether Europe stays close to the United States, whether Europe integrates itself, or whether Europe begins to fall apart. Germany’s history is almost a morality story: the country goes through World War Two, experiences war crimes, the Holocaust, the Third Reich, and is then divided. But then it is reborn as a democratic country—with the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany (East Germany was of course in the Communist camp)—and then through reunification it has an historic opportunity given to it, almost as a gift, to do well for its people and to do good in the world in terms of driving freedom, democracy, open markets, and by binding Europe. I think that Angela Merkel stepping down as party leader will almost certainly result in her stepping down as Chancellor soon. She says this will occur in 2021, but it could well happen earlier. The real question is whether Germany is losing its pro-European, pro-transatlantic political center. I think the task for whomever replaces her is going to be to fill the void that is currently being occupied by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Left (Die Linke). These two parties are eroding the reasonable and pragmatic political center that is so essential to Germany’s future. FF: Under your leadership, the Atlantic Council has expanded significantly and has burnished its reputation as one of the top think tanks in the world. Can you tell us about your vision for the organization? FK: Our mission statement is very simple to say and very hard to do: “Working together to secure the future.” That means that America cannot go it alone. It means that America can only succeed in the world when working constructively with allies. In fact, this really is our greatest asset when you compare us to Russia or China. The purpose of the Atlantic Council since its birth in 1961—its roots really go back to the birth of NATO in 1949—has always been to galvanize friends and allies to secure the future. In 1945 we had roughly 50 percent of global GDP. Now we have less than 25 percent, and falling. As such, we are relatively less capable of doing things on our own. So we have to be even better at working multilaterally with allies, at a time when we’re actually getting worse at it. So the mission of the Atlantic Council is, first and foremost, to drive this cooperative agenda. We do it across twelve programs and centers that cover all of the regions of the world as well as many of the functional policy areas, ranging from energy to security to cyber to next-generation programming. Deepening the transatlantic community is at the core of what we do. But we are also strongly focused on other global issues, whether it’s the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, or Africa. And, finally, we’re trying to create communities of influence around the things we care about. We’re not just writing papers that gather dust on shelves. We’re a very action-oriented, dynamic, and entrepreneurial organization. I think that is what has given us our growth and has set us apart. We hold ourselves to account. We try to move the needle on issues. We’re not satisfied with just saying smart things or with bringing smart people together. We are results-oriented. FF: Could you go into more detail on the Council’s work, as well as your own thoughts, on disinformation? This is clearly a big area of focus for you. FK: This is a problem that is only going to get more complicated. It is not only the weaponization of disinformation; it is also the weaponization of information. You can take real information and augment it, hype it, and create divisions in American society around it. That can sometimes be as damaging as disinformation. We have set up the Digital Forensic Research Lab, which monitors information-related threats to democracy around the world on a 24/7 basis. We have become cutting-edge in this space. We have good partnerships with the British government, with Facebook (which is now really trying to burnish its reputation as an organization that cares about protecting democracy), and many others. We’re very proud of this activity because we are not only doing this work ourselves—pushing back real-time as disinformation spreads and utilizing troops on the ground during elections around the world—but beyond that, we are also training a new generation of what we call “digital Sherlocks”. We, as a relatively small organization, cannot defend truth around the world on our own, which is so important for healthy democracy. So we are training these people in the necessary skills to combat disinformation, by spotting bots, trolls, and nefarious actors. We are teaching them how to reveal what these actors are doing in order to undermine the power of that disinformation. This is just one illustration of how we are a “do tank” and not just a think tank. FF: Could you speak a little bit about the Atlantic Council’s relationship with the Fletcher School? What advice would you have for any Fletcher students interested in pursuing careers in the areas we have discussed? FK: This is an exciting relationship for us, and we believe we can strengthen it further. I think both Fletcher and the Council can be innovative and entrepreneurial in thinking about what we could do more of. I would invite Fletcher students to bubble up ideas to the Atlantic Council about how we could be helpful in Washington. There is no doubt that having a partner like the Council in Washington gives Fletcher a place where they can embed themselves and have access. Fletcher is one of the greatest schools in the world at what it does. We’re very strong in Washington at what we do. What Fletcher does has direct importance for the policymaking apparatus in Washington, and in the sausage-making process of U.S. foreign policy. So we hope that through our relationship, we’ll be able to give more and more of the best students at Fletcher access to Washington. I would also encourage Fletcher students to apply for our many internships across our programs and centers. We like to have graduate students from top schools like Fletcher applying, and it has been a good route for people to work their way into permanent employment by enabling us to get to know the top rising experts. Image: Courtesy of European People’s Party / Flickr Fred Kempe is the president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. Under his leadership since 2007, the Council has achieved historic, industry-leading growth in size and influence, expanding its work through regional centers spanning the globe and through centers focused on topics ranging from international security and energy to global trade and next generation leadership. Before joining the Council, Kempe was a prize-winning editor and reporter at the Wall Street Journal for more than twenty-five years. In New York, he served as assistant managing editor, International, and columnist. Prior to that, he was the longest-serving editor and associate publisher ever of the Wall Street Journal Europe, running the global Wall Street Journal's editorial operations in Europe and the Middle East. He is the author of four books. The most recent, Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth, was a New York Times Best Seller and a National Best Seller. Kempe is a graduate of the University of Utah and has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where he was a member of the International Fellows program in the School of International Affairs. /episode/index/show/fletcherforumpodcast/id/9796484

On Counterintelligence and AI: A Conversation with former FBI General Counsel James Baker 02/18/2019

The Fletcher Forum Podcast

TOPICS