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181. In Defense of The “Obama Doctrine”

Author:
John R. Murnane
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
In a series of interviews with Jefferey Goldberg in the April 2016 Atlantic, President Barack Obama provided a much-needed and sober reappraisal of the limits of American power and a realistic view of U.S. foreign policy based on a careful assessment of priorities, or what Goldberg calls the “Obama Doctrine.” The heart of the president’s approach is the rejection of the “Washington Playbook.” Obama told Goldberg, “there’s a playbook in Washington that presidents are supposed to follow. It’s a playbook that comes out of the foreign-policy establishment. And the playbook prescribes responses to different events, and these responses tend to be militarized responses.”1 According to the Playbook, military power and the “creditability” it provides is the principle instrument of American foreign policy; it has been accepted wisdom at think tanks and among foreign policy experts since the end of World War II; Obama has challenged this dictum.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Government, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Middle East, United Nations, Syria, North America, and United States of America

182. Forced Migration and Internal Displacement in the Arab World and Beyond

Author:
Rochelle A. Davis, Fowzia Abdullahi Abukar, and Emma Murphy
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
Since 2010, Professor Rochelle Davis has conducted research among the refugee communities in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, working with MAAS Alum Abbie Taylor. With 60 million people counted as refugees or internally displaced, we are currently witnessing the largest global forced displacement since World War II. These displaced millions are primarily fleeing war, conflict, and persecution, but a host of other factors also contribute to the unstable conditions they face in their home countries: forced conscription; lack of access to health care, jobs, and education; drought and environmental degradation. More than half come from the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa. Despite the news of migrants arriving daily in Europe, the overwhelming majority of those displaced remain in or near their home countries.
Topic:
Migration, United Nations, Refugees, Islamic State, Research, Displacement, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Somalia

183. Notes for the Next UN Secretary-General

Author:
Simon Adams
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
The United Nations faces an existential crisis. The norms that bind and ‘safeguard humanity’ are currently under threat. The deliberate bombing of hospitals and the indiscriminate killing of civilians has become almost routine in Syria and several other conflicts. Numerous governments and murderous non-state actors (like isis or Boko Haram) are defying international humanitarian and human rights law. This article argues that the solution to the current global exigency and a central challenge facing the next Secretary-General is to achieve an equilibrium shift away from crisis response and towards conflict prevention. This is especially true with regard to preventing mass atrocity crimes (genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing). Historically, no single issue has done more to tarnish the reputation of the un than the failure to halt atrocities. Under a committed Secretary-General, the un has unique capacity to prevent these crimes.
Topic:
International Law, Displacement, Conflict, Violence, and Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
Political Geography:
United Nations, Syria, and Global Focus

184. Natural Cooperation: Facing Water Challenges in the Middle East

Author:
Aysegul Kibaroglu
Publication Date:
09-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Middle East Institute (MEI)
Abstract:
This Policy Paper is part of the Middle East Institute's Regional Cooperation Series. Throughout 2016, MEI will be releasing several policy papers by renowned scholars and experts exploring possibilities to foster regional cooperation across an array of sectors. The purpose is to highlight the myriad benefits and opportunities associated with regional cooperation, and the high costs of the continued business-as-usual model of competition and intense rivalry. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is regarded as one of the most water-challenged regions in the world. The destabilizing impact of its resource constraints is compounded by the fact that some 60 percent of the region’s water flows across international borders, generating and exacerbating political tensions between states. Water insecurity will increase in the MENA region if the current situation of minimal water cooperation persists under the disabling conditions of political volatility, economic disintegration, institutional failure, and environmental degradation. Experiences from around the world demonstrate that countries that have achieved regional water cooperation have prospered together and kept the threat of conflict a remote possibility. It is time for the countries in the Middle East to realize that there is no alternative to sustainable water cooperation.
Topic:
Security, Water, Infrastructure, Geopolitics, Political stability, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

185. Syria’s New Media Landscape: Independent Media Born Out of War

Author:
Antoun Issa
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Middle East Institute (MEI)
Abstract:
The Syrian Civil War has shaken the country’s media landscape and provided space for the nascent emergence of an independent Syrian media. Syria’s media culture is undergoing significant transformation from a top-down, state-run industry, to a diverse arena populated by competing viewpoints and driven by communities. This paper maps the changes in Syrian media since the beginning of the uprising in 2011, and explores the constraints facing independent media moving forward. Stronger mechanisms to support independent media in Syria are needed—such as additional and consistent funding, industry associations, and ease of travel—to develop a more open media culture in Syria, and foster a democratic and pluralistic post-conflict society.
Topic:
Media, Conflict, and Syrian War
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

186. Chinese Military Promises Aid to Syria

Author:
Peter Wood
Publication Date:
08-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
China Brief
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Although it is highly unlikely that China will deploy a large force or even, as one widely disseminated and erroneous report suggested, its aircraft carrier to fight in Syria, it is clear that China is increasing the visibility of its support for Bashar al-Assad’s government to improve its level of influence in whatever resulting post–civil war government emerges.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Humanitarian Aid, Bilateral Relations, Military Affairs, and Conflict
Political Geography:
China, Middle East, Asia, and Syria

187. Reflections Five Years After the Uprisings

Author:
Dina Rashed, Michael Wahid Hanna, Ellen Lust, and Ellis Goldberg
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
The early months of 2016 mark five years since the eruption of the Arab uprising. The region’s wars, failed transitions, resurgent authoritarianism, and spiraling sectarianism and Islamist extremism make for a grim anniversary. To take stock of what went wrong and what might still go differently, POMEPS asked more than a dozen scholars to reflect on the experience of the last five years in a single country or a thematic issue. What has changed since the uprisings began half a decade ago? What has remained the same, or returned to pre-uprising forms? What do these developments mean for the political science of the Middle East? All these questions, and more, are pondered in the essays published in POMEPS Studies 18, Reflections Five Years After the Uprisings. All were first published in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, and collected in an open access PDF here. Together, the essays offer a diverse, informed study that should help scholars, journalists, policymakers and the public reflect on the five years since the Arab uprisings, and consider the Middle East’s future.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Democracy, Arab Spring, Conflict, Syrian War, and Uprising
Political Geography:
Middle East, Libya, Yemen, North Africa, Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia

188. Externalizing the Crisis: Buffer Zones Around the EU

Author:
Emma Burström
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Global Political Trends Center (GPoT)
Abstract:
With the Syrian civil war soon entering its fifth year of armed conflict, the European Union is facing the largest influx of people in its history. Over 710,000 refugees and irregular migrants, of which a majority were Syrians, entered EU territory in the first 3 quarters of 2015 only (FRONTEX, 2015). Despite several informal top-level meetings between the EU member states and a pledge to relocate 160,000 refugees from the two main reception countries Greece and Italy, concrete action has yet to be taken and, as of yet, less than two hundred have been resettled within the EU (European Commission (d), 2015). Attempts to manage the influx of refugees and irregular migrants on a supranational level have been met with resistance from the governments of the member states. As the situation deteriorates and the number of people arriving shows no sign of abating, the member states are desperately looking outside the EU for solutions. Hoping to persuade transit countries to participate in refugee protection, and to contribute to stronger borders, the EU is engaging in various projects and negotiations focusing on its near abroad, with the aim of creating a buffer against the migrants. This policy update will briefly explore the history and implementation of these buffer zones, from the visa restrictions during the Yugoslav wars in the 90’s to the increasing use of ‘safe third countries’ today. Further, the positive and negative aspects of these buffer zones will be examined with the objective of: 1) detecting the possible risks of human rights violations, poverty, and insecurity, that closed border could cause; and 2), highlighting the potential benefits to the refugees and irregular migrants, the host countries, and the refugee sending countries, that could be the result of well-constructed policies.
Topic:
European Union, Refugees, Conflict, and Syrian War
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, and Syria

189. A Look Back at NATO’s 1999 Kosovo Campaign: A Questionably "Legal" but Justifiable Exception?

Author:
Ralph R. Steinke
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
It was the last European war in a bloody century of European wars. Less than ten years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the 1999 Kosovo War—Operation Allied Force, as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) referred to it—was unique in many respects. From the perspectives of both international law and the law of armed conflict, it significantly challenged the limits of jus ad bellum, the international laws of war governing the circumstances under which nations are permitted to use force, as well as jus in bello, the laws of war relating to proper conduct in war.[1] After decades of a NATO-Warsaw Pact standoff in Europe and proxy wars elsewhere it was not self-defense, but rather humanitarian considerations, that drew the NATO Alliance, with the United States in the forefront, into this conflict. While the seventy-eight-day NATO bombing campaign captured the world’s attention, not long after its conclusion this military operation began to fade from the public memory. Beyond the Balkans, a little more than two years after the Kosovo War’s conclusion, the traumatic events of September 11, 2001, would virtually remove global examination and recollections of the Kosovo conflict from the agenda. The United States and much of the world embarked on an entirely new, 21st century ideological and combative struggle: fighting the scourge of terrorism. Nevertheless, the Kosovo War has alternatively been referred to as a reference point by Americans who have sought a response to the Syrian conflict as well as by Vladimir Putin as justification for his claims to Crimea and the “protection” of Russian nationals. Some sixteen years after the Kosovo conflict and Operation Allied Force, it is worth asking: are there any insights to be recalled and gained from this conflict? What has been the war’s effect on the law of international armed conflict to date? Is Mr. Putin right to refer to the Kosovo campaign as his justification for the use of force, either implied or explicit, in Crimea or greater Ukraine? It will be argued here that in spite of significant concern and warnings then that the Kosovo campaign would provide a dangerous precedent for international law and even global stability,[2] it has had a nominal if not negligible effect on the body of international law as informed by jus ad bellum. In spite of Mr. Putin’s attempts to try to identify it as a precedent, the Kosovo campaign was indeed an exception. While it was characterized as a messy and “ugly” affair,[3] it did accomplish what it intended to do: stop the killing of potentially tens of thousands of Kosovar Albanians and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands more from Kosovo, ultimately providing them with a better and more secure life than was possible in the pre-Kosovo campaign period.
Topic:
NATO, War, Conflict, and Collective Defense
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Kosovo, and Syria

190. Russia as Opportunist or Spoiler in the Middle East?

Author:
Pavel K. Baev
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The severe and fast-evolving Ukraine crisis has required a great concentration of Russia’s political efforts and is having a massive impact on Russian policymaking, including in the Middle East. This region provides the best opportunity for Moscow to reassert its status as a key player in the global arena, and the deep fall of oil prices makes Russia particularly attentive to regional conflict developments. One of the main motivations for Russia is the pronounced desire to demonstrate its capacity to thwart US policy, but another is to prove its value to China as a strategic partner. Russia’s reach remains limited but it will continue to look for opportunities to make a difference.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Conflict, and Syrian War
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Middle East, Syria, and United States of America