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361. Hezbollah Prioritizes Its Own Interests, Putting Lebanon at Risk

Author:
Matthew Levitt
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
As demonstrators rail against economic problems, corruption, and sectarianism, the group’s role in undermining the public’s financial and physical security is coming under greater scrutiny. Lebanese citizens took to the streets this weekend to protest the country’s acute financial crisis, which has been marked by one of the highest debt ratios in the world, a new currency crisis, and fears that a strike will close gas stations indefinitely. Many believe that deep-rooted corruption and sectarianism got them into this mess, and may now complicate efforts to get them out. Against this backdrop, more criticism is being directed at Hezbollah, the widely designated terrorist organization that is simultaneously the most powerful party in Lebanon’s government and an aggressively sectarian movement that keeps its activities and weapons outside the government’s control. As the Treasury Department recently noted, developments over the past few weeks have underscored the extent to which the group’s actions “prioritize its interests, and those of its chief sponsor, Iran, over the welfare of Lebanese citizens and Lebanon’s economy.”
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Corruption, Financial Crisis, Protests, and Hezbollah
Political Geography:
Middle East and Lebanon

362. New Gaza Crossing Raises Questions About Blockade Policies

Author:
Neri Zilber
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
The items being moved from Egypt through Salah al-Din Gate underline the contradictions and long-term unsustainability of the current stalemate regarding Gaza assistance. The Gaza Strip has been blockaded for more than a decade now, owing primarily to the violent takeover and continued militant rejectionism of the territory’s Hamas rulers. Even after certain restrictions were eased after the 2014 Gaza war, Israel and Egypt maintained tight limits on the entry of goods into the coastal enclave. This policy began to fray in early 2018 as conditions inside Gaza further deteriorated, culminating in the “Great March of Return” border demonstrations and short-lived rounds of escalation between Israel and Hamas. Indirect negotiations over a long-term truce have since provided some relief, yet the impact of one of the most noteworthy concessions has been under-examined—namely, the opening in 2018 of Salah al-Din Gate, a commercial border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. This crossing puts the lie to the narrative of a “besieged” Gaza, yet also raises questions about Israel’s continuing blockade policy and Hamas’s pretensions to be a responsible ruling entity.
Topic:
Border Control, Borders, Trade, and Hamas
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Gaza, and Egypt

363. Kuwait: A Changing System Under Stress

Author:
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen and Simon Henderson
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
The Washington Institute has been sponsoring a series of discussions about sudden succession in the Middle East. Each session focuses on scenarios that might unfold if a specific ruler or leader departed the scene tomorrow. Questions include these: Would the sudden change lead to different policies? Would it affect the stability of the respective countries involved, or the region as a whole? What would be the impact on U.S. interests? Would the manner of a leader's departure make a difference? The discussions also probe how the U.S. government might adjust to the new situation or influence outcomes. This essay, seventh in the series, discusses Kuwait, a small, oil-rich country surrounded by big neighbors with which relations have often been uneasy. Its leader, Emir Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, is ninety years old and apparently in fragile health. His immediate heir, half-brother Nawaf, is not much younger at eighty-two. More important, perhaps, Nawaf lacks the current emir's adeptness as a diplomat. In a Gulf region experiencing sharp tensions, Sabah's exit will remove a much-needed node of stability. Whoever ultimately takes the helm will have a substantial legacy to uphold.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Politics, Succession, and Monarchy
Political Geography:
Middle East, Kuwait, and Gulf Nations

364. Knocking NATO: Strategic and institutional challenges risk the future of Europe’s seven-decade cold peace

Author:
Anessa L. Kimball
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:
Despite providing European stability through collective defence and crisis management in an exclusive club, NATO faces persistent challenges from strategic insecurities complicated by recent institutional uncertainties. The club’s structure permits several goods-producing schemes, depending on how individual contributions combine, the qualities associated with a good’s publicness (i.e., its possible substitutes or how it excludes benefits from non-members) and partner differences in capacity and willingness. NATO faces challenges from Russia ranging from cybersecurity and media manipulation to overt and covert military pressures. Recent deployments sink costs and tie hands, reassuring commitment credibility, and are essential given the uncertainty generated from U.S. President Donald Trump’s ambiguous commitment to Article 5, compounded with the effects of Brexit on alliance politics and burden-sharing. Given the conjunction of strategic insecurities and institutional uncertainties, it is convenient to knock NATO, but rational institutionalist theory (RIT) is optimistic. RIT argues that the club’s design permits strategic adaptation to new contexts and insecurities, but partners must signal commitment credibly to prevent uncertainties about cohesion. RIT favoured enlargement to shift burdens, and data confirm that the Americans, British and Germans shifted burdens to others, including Canada. Moreover, any alternative to NATO is costly for less-endowed partners facing direct defence pressures. Canada’s role as a broker of compromise and its willingness to make its commitments credible places it in future missions, regardless. Canadian leadership in reassuring and socializing new partners in Operation Reassurance offers an opportunity to retain its objective and subjective position as a key partner.
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, Military Strategy, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Europe, Canada, and North America

365. Does Canada Need a Foreign Policy Review

Author:
Randolph Mank
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:
Canada’s contemporary foreign policy has been shaped by deep integration with, and dependence on, the United States, offset by multilateral support for a rules-based international order. The Trump administration’s confrontational nationalism, combined with other global events and trends, has now disrupted Canada’s position and assumptions. This raises the question of whether or not it’s time for a Canadian foreign policy review. While the Trudeau government deserves credit for several initiatives, a series of discontinuities in Canada’s domestic and foreign policies suggests that our interests could be better served. The Canadian government has two main options: it can follow its current path of adjusting its policies in an ad hoc fashion, while waiting out the Trump administration and hoping for more favourable successors, or it can attempt to set Canada on a new path, in which case a foreign policy review would be warranted. The review option would only be useful if everything were on the table, including what to do about bilateral relations with the U.S., the future of our multilateral commitments, and domestic policies on such critical global issues as energy and the environment. The ultimate goal should be to advance Canada’s national interests through better aligned domestic and foreign policies.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, and Government
Political Geography:
Canada, North America, and United States of America

366. Bringing Chaos to Order: Donald Trump and his Band of National Security Advisors

Author:
Eugene Lang
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:
Two hundred and forty days. That is the average length of tenure – eight months – of the national security advisor to the U.S. president during the past two-and-a-half years. With the resignation or firing (depending on who you listen to) of John Bolton, Donald Trump is now on to his fifth assistant to the president for national security affairs, the official title of the job. It is an historic anomaly of epic proportions. Since the position was created during the Eisenhower administration in the early 1950s, on average national security advisors have served 32 months, exactly four times the average shelf life of Trump’s advisors (and Trump is only just over halfway through his first term of office).1 Revolving doors are of course a hallmark of the Trump administration, but does this one really matter?
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Government, National Security, Politics, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:
Canada, North America, and United States of America

367. Complex Strategic Coercion and Russian Military Modernization

Author:
Julian Lindley-French
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:
The purpose of this short briefing paper is to consider the capability and utility of contemporary Russian forces in relation to President Vladimir Putin’s strategic goals. Specifically, this paper examines the critical role played by Russia’s “New Look” military force in the realization of Moscow’s political goals via complex strategic coercion. Complex strategic coercion is the use of all national means and beyond by a “securitized” state such as Russia to systematically undermine the command authority, as well as the political and social cohesion of adversary states and institutions. This end is achieved by creating and exploiting divisions within diverse societies, interfering in national political processes and exacerbating tensions between democracies. Complex strategic coercion is underpinned by the threat of overwhelming conventional military power against weaker states at a time and place of the aggressor’s choosing. This type of coercion is allied to the implicit threat of nuclear and other means of mass destruction to confirm the changed facts on the ground by preventing strategic peer competitors from mounting a successful rescue campaign. Western strategists increasingly confuse strategy, capability and technology, thus undermining deterrence and defence efforts. Russian Chief of the General Staff Gen. Valeriy Gerasimov has been pioneering precisely the fusion of the three elements of warfare for a decade. The modernization of Russia’s armed forces must thus be seen in the context of a new form of complex strategic coercion that employs systematic pressure across 5Ds: disinformation, destabilization, disruption, deception and implied destruction. Russia’s strategic goal is to conduct a continuous low-level war at the seams of democratic societies, and on the margins of both the EU and NATO, to create implicit spheres of influence where little or no such influence would otherwise exist. In the worst case, complex strategic coercion would be used to mask Russian force concentrations prior to any attack on NATO and EU states from above the Arctic Circle and Norway’s North Cape in the north, through the Baltic States and Black Sea region and into the southeastern Mediterranean. The strategy’s enduring method is to use the implicit threat of force to keep the Western allies permanently off-balance, strategically, politically and militarily, and thus to offset any innate advantages afforded Western leaders by either their forces or resources. If the Alliance concept of deterrence and defence is to remain credible, an entirely new and innovative concept of protection and projection must be considered as a matter of urgency.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Deterrence, and Modernization
Political Geography:
Russia and Canada

368. Cyber-Security: The Threats from Russia and the Middle East

Author:
Ferry de Kerckhove
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:
The art of war has changed considerably since the end of the Second World War. In the last 15 years, the centre of gravity has slowly shifted from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The West is increasingly being destabilized. Hybrid warfare and cyber-attacks have become increasingly effective alternatives to both hard and soft power. Russia is a major player in this domain; so is Iran. Other players are joining the fray, most of them hostile to the West, such as Iran and Russia’s client states. The barriers between civilian and military are fading quickly. All-out war now happens in a space that’s invisible to the naked eye. Not only is such warfare threatening us, but it also has consequences we have barely begun to assess. The divide between good and bad is blurring. Marshall McLuhan said the medium is the message. Today, the medium and the message are an undecipherable continuum where evil and lies coexist with truth and goodwill. Technological prowess increases vulnerability, but technology is also at the heart of corresponding systems of security. Thus, we have fully entered a new arms race where deterrence comes from the other side knowing what you don’t want him to discover, but what you want him to fear. Voltaire said: “If you wish to speak to me, let us start by defining the meaning of our words.” In this day and age, this mantra is particularly applicable to the definition of contemporary threats as well as of the targets, or even who is in the sights of Russian and Middle Eastern leaders. “Cyberspace is a domain characterized by the use of electronics and the electromagnetic spectrum to store, modify, and exchange data via networked systems and associated physical infrastructures. In effect, cyberspace can be thought of as the interconnection of human beings through computers and telecommunication, without regard to physical geography.” Consequently, “(c)ybersecurity is the practice of protecting systems, networks, and programs from digital attacks. These cyberattacks are usually aimed at accessing, changing, or destroying sensitive information; extorting money from users; or interrupting normal business processes. Implementing effective cybersecurity measures is particularly challenging today because there are more devices than people, and attackers are becoming more innovative.” Discussions focus on whether Russia or China is the heavyweight in terms of threat. Some argue that China is more subtle while Russia is more of a rogue. But it is undeniable that China’s attempt to change the fundamental paradigm of international relations, while using and hopefully subduing the existing international order’s mechanisms to its advantage, represents a holistic approach and is thus more threatening to the world if it even partly succeeds. Indeed, the planet’s centre of gravity is moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific and that means the global threat comes from China. If we needed a reminder, in 2014 Chinese hackers stole the personal information of more than 22 million people connected to U.S. security clearance processes. Not bad for five years ago!
Topic:
Security, Science and Technology, and Cybersecurity
Political Geography:
Russia, Iran, and Middle East

369. Defence Procurement Canada: Opportunities and Constraints

Author:
Jeff Collins
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:
Substantive defence issues rarely make national political campaign platforms. However, in the 2019 federal election, reforming the defence procurement bureaucracy to overcome delays became a highlight for not one but two of the country’s main political parties. To “ensure that priority projects are progressing on time and on budget”, the Conservatives called for the creation of a defence procurement secretariat within the Privy Council Office, akin to a model used by the Robert Borden government in the First World War. The winning Liberal party went further and promised to create a separate defence procurement agency, called Defence Procurement Canada (DPC). As of this writing, details remain sparse, but as with the Conservatives, the ostensible purpose of such a reform is to ensure that “Canada’s biggest and most complex defence procurement projects are delivered on time and with greater transparency …” Considering that the government’s own defence white paper, 2017’s Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE) found that 70 per cent of all defence procurement projects were not delivered on time, the existing bureaucratic process warrants a serious look. In fact, a substantial shake-up of the Canadian defence procurement bureaucracy has not taken place since the last separate procurement organization, the Department of Defence Production (DDP), was abolished in 1969. Arguments for altering the bureaucratic architecture of Canadian defence procurement have ebbed and flowed since the mid-2000s, when the first of successive governments began acquisition plans for replacing decades-old fleets of equipment, including CF-18 jets, Protecteur-class auxiliary oiler replenishment ships, Halifax-class frigates and Iroquois-class destroyers. With much publicized delays in these and other major Crown projects (MCPs), reform advocates have drawn attention to Canada’s multi-departmental procurement process as a source of frustration. Unique among allies, Canada relies principally upon three departments – National Defence (DND), Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) and Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) – for acquiring MCPs. Other countries typically rely on one of three approaches to acquiring material for their armed forces: procurement by individual armed services (United States); centralized government organizations (United Kingdom) or independent civilian corporations (Sweden). Although it is not clear whether the Liberal proposal is a new department (akin to the DDP), a Crown corporation or an agency under the DND’s auspices, any restructuring of the defence procurement system will not be easy. No matter what shape it takes, any new organization must deal with rearranging a complex set of institutional realities based on decades’ worth of statutes, policy frameworks and human resources allocations. Political realties still apply, too. Any new organization must contend with Canadian procurement politics, including the impact of new governments, differing priorities, regionalism and purchasing patterns.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Politics, Military Affairs, Weapons, and Military Spending
Political Geography:
Canada and North America

370. Funding Defence for the Age of Accelerations

Author:
Ross Fetterly
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:
At a time when even large, high-tech Silicon Valley corporations that operate as market disruptors are challenged to keep up with the pace of change, national Western governments need to ensure that defence funding is responsive to persistent, dramatic and non-linear shifts in the international strategic environment. The United States is experiencing a “deepening crisis of credibility in global affairs”,2 largely resulting from an America-first posture, rather than a multilateral approach with traditional allies. Some nations now view the U.S. as “undermining the international order”,3 and reliance on the U.S. as the leading democratic nation is less certain. Indeed, periods of great economic change “driven chiefly by economic and technological developments, which then impact on social structures, political systems, military power, and the position of individual states”,4 create a dynamic that shifts power, influence and trade among nations. Further, nations that can “develop, produce, and deploy technology the most effectively”5 can gain a comparative advantage in the current security environment, where the rate of technological change is accelerating. However, with adversaries advancing their military technology in increasingly shorter cycles, market dominance by Western defence firms has only fleeting or transitory advantage. The revolution in military technology has been a constant topic for analysts, but the changing military and defence department skill sets required in the future security environment are equally important, with the cyber-realm and space being two prominent examples.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Government, and Military Spending
Political Geography:
Canada and North America