02nd September 2016 18:43:34 Hours
Scores of critical and analytical perspectives, tabled before the audience at the ‘Colombo Defence Seminar - 2016’ by Lady Olga Maitland, Former President of the Defence and Security Forum (UK) at the BMICH on Thursday (1) led to a thought-provoking question and answer session as the participants were eager to seek clarifications.
In her presentation, she explained the dilemma behind the deployment of peace-keepers in the UN and queried whether the express purpose of such services was recognized or otherwise.
“Tasks becoming more complicated: increasingly involved with protecting civilians, - and not as was the case 20 years ago, keeping warring armies at bay. The mandates are not clear, The Peacekeepers can fire when under personal attack yet they responded with force in only one case in five when civilians were attacked,” she claimed.
“The fact is the US is not shy in using any resources at its disposal. Take the USAID programme. Officially it is an international aid programme and does indeed useful work. But there is a darker side. It operates subject to the foreign policy of the President, the Sec of State and the National Security Council. Add to that, the CIA. Take Cuba. USAID has run a multi - million dollar programme, disguised as humanitarian aid, but in fact it was intended to incite rebellion in Cuba and overthrow the government using CIA agents posing as tourists and aid workers.”
“The fact is that where the US government is hostile to the government of a country, USAID may be asked to undertake programmes that the US govt. cannot be formally associated. This might include support for opposition political movements that seek to remove the government. Such ‘political aid’ is criticized as being incompatible with USAID’s humanitarian role,” she argued.
“Russia on the other hand, takes a robust military view. No soft power here. Like it or not, in their view the Syrian situation can only end with grinding the people down to a standstill. Tough to witness on humanitarian grounds. In the end, the US must see that no amount of nation building and economic aid will charge the Middle East. It has to find its own roadmap which is painful and frustrating to watch. And sadly armies still trump economics. The reality is that soft power cannot be a major diplomatic tool, it is only effective when tempered with hard power,” she pointed out.
Following are the summarized points she touched on the subject ‘The Perils of Soft Power’ during her contribution:
“Soft power can only go so far. There are times when it slips.
Take a look at UN Soft power - peacekeeping operations. Can be hugely worthwhile, but there are human frailties. Expectations can be too high. Peacekeeping usually only works in a context of resolved conflict. In unresolved conflicts they often produce more problems than they solve.
What is the point of peacekeepers if they do not keep the peace?
From Rwanda to Bosnia, Haiti to Congo, failures raise questions about UN Operations and their mandates.
Headlines - just two weeks ago, ‘Violence in South Sudan kills three Chinese UN Peacekeepers.’
Similarly shortly afterwards aid workers gang raped, a journalist killed. Panic calls for help to nearby UN Mission with Ethiopian, Chinese and Nepalese on standby. Nothing happened. Armed peacekeepers with armoured vehicles couldn’t get authorization to leave their base.
What is happening?
Overall in 2016 until June, 3,499 Peacekeepers have been killed.
The truth is that peacekeeping - soft power can pay a hefty price,
Herein lies the dilemma.
One of the most vexing issues is the use of force by the United Nations peacekeeping forces.
UN intervention in civil wars such as Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegivina, and Rwanda has thrown into stark relief the difficulties faced by of peacekeepers operating in situations where consent to their presence and activities is fragile and where there is little peace to keep.
Hence some real failures and with it recriminations.
Complex question arise. Is a peace enforcement role for peacekeepers possible or is this simply war by another name?
Should or can the Rules of Engagement be changed?
The United Nations find themselves on a soul-searching mission: how and when should our blue-helmeted troops respond when civilians are under threat or attacked?
Soldiers face different risks: terrorist groups, transnational criminal gangs, and hateful ethnic militias.
Tasks becoming more complicated: increasingly involved with protecting civilians, - and not as was the case 20 years ago, keeping warring armies at bay.
The mandates are not clear, The Peacekeepers can fire when under personal attack yet they responded with force in only one case in five when civilians were attacked.
Take Rwanda 1994. The nadir of many lows of UN Peacekeeping.
Hundreds of desperate Tutsis sought refuge at a school where 90 UN troops were based. Surely they were safe. The UN flag flew over the school.
The Belgian peacekeepers were armed with a machine gun, planted at the entrance. The Tutsis could not imagine they would stand by while people were slaughtered.
However, the UN command decided that despite warnings of impending genocide, there were other duties to be done. The peacekeepers were ordered to abandon the school and escort foreigners to the airport and out of the country.
As the soldiers left, Tutsis begged to be shot rather than be left to the militia’s machetes. Within hours, 2,000 people at the school were murdered by gun, grenade and blade.
A year later, matters were even worse. A detachment of Dutch peacekeepers failed to stop a massacre of 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica, a supposedly UN ‘safe area’. They were in fact overwhelmed by sheer numbers. When they did call for help from the French in the area, it was refused. The Dutch were forced to watch as the killings began before they withdrew. The stench of shame about the abandonment has remained to this day.
Step forward Ibrahaim Brahami with his report in 2000, when he said that the UN had repeatedly failed to meet the challenge,’ reforms then began.
The UN produced a new model including the ethos of ‘responsibility to protect’. No longer would UN forces stand idly by while innocent people were murdered.
But Issues have still brutally persisted.
In 2000 British forces landed in Sierra Leone after UN peacekeepers stood aside or fled an advance on the country’s capital. Freetown, by a notoriously brutal rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front. Indeed several hundred Indian peacekeepers actually surrendered to the rebels.
A bitter row broke out between the British General Sir David Richards and the Indian Major General Jetley as to the terms of engagement. According to Richards, the Indians were determined not to risk or lose a single Indian soldier’s life.
Hence the importance of clarity with UN peacekeeping missions. They create the illusion of safety and doing something good, but keeping up to that is tough.
US Soft Power in the Middle East:
Unintended consequences of the US led war on Iraq.
After the war, the idea was that soft power would bring stability and democracy.
It did not.
Nothing new. Since the end of the Cold War, both Democratic and Republican administrations have believed that soft power and economic incentives can cultivate peaceable democracies through the world, and friendly societies adhering to Western liberal values.
President Obama is correct though to warn that flexing military muscle is not a stabilizing solution everywhere.
Perhaps Iraq best epitomizes the dilemma that terrorism and insurgency pose when soft power does not work. The US can provide air transport, put troops on the ground to defend Baghdad, it may halt the advance of ISIS, but it can’t defeat it.
Radical ideology is a tough one, because it cannot be controlled with the bullet. It will just move elsewhere, such as Syria for instance.
Russia on the other hand, takes a robust military view. No soft power here. Like it or not, in their view the Syrian situation can only end with grinding the people down to a standstill. Tough to witness on humanitarian grounds.
In the end, the US must see that no amount of nation building and economic aid will charge the Middle East. It has to find its own roadmap which is painful and frustrating to watch.
And sadly armies still trump economics.
The reality is that soft power cannot be a major diplomatic tool, it is only effective when tempered with hard power.
Soft Power Versus Hard Propganda
Which do you trust for reliable, honest and independent information?
BBC News is the one that beleaguered people struggle to switch on to on their radios. Citizens caught in war zones are desperate to tune it. They know that the BBC can be trusted and is not pushing a government political message.
Elsewhere?
The dangers of soft power surface in state orchestrated cultural programmes - which often come across as just propaganda.
The Pentagon calls it ‘psy-ops’, but the State Dept. and USAID call it ‘information,’ all of it intended to influence local populations.
The fact is the US is not shy in using any resources at its disposal. Take the USAID programme. Officially it is an international aid programme and does indeed useful work. But there is a darker side. It operates subject to the foreign policy of the President, the Sec of State and the National Security Council. Add to that, the CIA.
Take Cuba. USAID has run a multi - million dollar programme, disguised as humanitarian aid, but in fact it was intended to incite rebellion in Cuba and overthrow the government using CIA agents posing as tourists and aid workers.
The fact is that where the US government is hostile to the government of a country, USAID may be asked to undertake programmes that the US govt. cannot be formally associated. This might include support for opposition political movements that seek to remove the government. Such ‘political aid’ is criticized as being incompatible with USAID’s humanitarian role.
Similarly their engagement with the US military has been severely criticized for exposing USAID workers to the dangers of military combat. For all that, the US government overall has no qualms for political aid and joint-civilian military programmes to go ahead in the interest of US geopolitical interests and to build democracy.
They can also have influence at the United Nations.
The US can use aid as a political weapon. Take Yemen. In 1990 the Yemeni Ambassador to the UN voted against a resolution for a US lead coalition to use force against Iraq. The US Ambassador, Thomas Pickering walked over to the Yemeni Ambassador and retorted. That was the most expensive ‘No’ vote you ever cast.’ Immediately afterwards USAID ceased operations and funding in Yemen.
As for Iraq. The time no pretence that USAID’s budget of $5.1b included a massive sum is devoted to setting up democratic elections. In hindsight - voting played a limited role in reconciling religious divisions or combating corruption in Iraqi society.
Everything has gone from bad to worse. Insurgency spread and remains persistent with killings to this day. ISIS became the unintended consequence of the US led war work. They never understood the local culture, or sectarian identities. Their mission was fatally flawed.
China takes different tack
For China soft power means trade as well as development programmes.
China is trading with the Philippines at the rate of $60 b. a year. But soft power merges into hard power as China seeks to consolidate its position in the region. In 1994, in an attempt to claim disputed territory in the South China Sea, China built a massive military base on Mischief Reef, well within the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Philippines.
Philippines could not respond militarily to this provocation. But, after a series of incidents it took the matter for adjudication by the United Nations International Tribunal in Hague. The finding came down overwhelmingly in favour of the Philippines. Beijing firmly rejected the finding. Its state news agency described the ruling as both ‘ill founded’ and ‘null and void.’
The matter is unlikely to rest there.
Soft power in the South China Seas has turned into hard power. Military spending is up-both on the China side and the US. Manila has sought more US military funding and made its bases more accessible to US forces.
So long China continues to harbor a highly aggressive military strategy in the South China Sea, its soft power initiatives will appear ineffective and illegitimate.
So what about Chinese aid and the development programmes? Are there any strings attached? First no questions are asked about the host government, it could be murderous, autocratic, but the Chinese policy, unlike US and Russia, takes no part in internal politics no matter how unsavoury they might be.
The aid comes in all shapes and forms, some are complete loans, debt relief, others deferred long term repayments, above all development finance which blurs aid with trade.
They are building the biggest mosque in North Africa in Algeria; elsewhere they have build hydropower stations, stadiums, hospitals, schools, provided goods and materials, technical cooperation, medical and humanitarian assistance, organized volunteer programmes.
Little published data, but it is believed there are nearly 3,000 development projects in 51 African countries ie. 45% of their entire aid programme.
They have overtaken US aid programmes by a large margin. In truth aid, development finance and commerce programmes have merged. China is entirely professional in their approach. Businessmen arrive already fluent, smart, and as I have seen in Algeria, perfect Arabic, French and English.
Beware: Soft becomes tough when you look at their powers of negotiation which are awesome, demanding, breaking all local rules, and always hugely in their favour.
Take a look at Russia
This propaganda machine has scaled great heights. President Putin manipulates the local media mercilessly now he is turning it to global audiences.
The state run news agency Sputnik has opened its first British bureau for Russia Today TV, known as RT, using Edinburgh, Scotland as its base.
When it descends into Russian propaganda war, then my recipe is clear. We need to be more vigilant. Their constant lies and misinformation must be dispelled swiftly by facts. The longer false rumours are generated by these television channels, the broader they are spread by social media, the more difficult it becomes to counter the Russian narrative.
That cannot go unchallenged.
Conclusion
Soft power has become a bitter battle ground.
In the end I believe that soft power inevitably ends up hard, thus becoming a paradox. Tangible power is all that matters, not intentions. Entry into a country’s psyche via culture has its inherent limits.
Soft power in my view cannot prevent way. Idealists believe that culture, and trade can create a relationship, the two lasting pillars of stability. The fact is we cannot identify a single, isolated or rogue pariah state that has responded positively. Soft power and restructuring did not solve the Middle East.
Sanctions do not work, and need a complete rethink.
In the end hard power overwhelms and triumphs.
My instinct is that any country should be clear in its own mind about what returns they expect to emerge from a massive investment in soft power. It can be immensely positive but not in the face of a bullying power.
Real politics mean being firm and clear about your position. Then roll in soft power and all its benefits.”
