No Longer Special?

A recently released report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has received more than its fair share of analysis by the commentariat who rarely, if ever, look at the committee’s reports with much care. The reason for such attention is clear. The headline news coming out of the committee was that the ‘special relationship’ between the United States and the UK was either no more (if you read some newspapers) or (if you read others) was a term that should rapidly be expunged from public discourse. Nor was this all. The UK, it continued, should increasingly stand up for itself and not be as deferential to the United States as it had traditionally been in the past. It should even, sometimes, say no.

Of course, headlines are not designed to capture complexity or nuance; and so it would seem to be with this report. Indeed, its collective authors readily concede that the relationship still remained strong – stronger now than ever perhaps now that the popular Obama was in the White House. Moreover, they did not call for any new alignment with any other particularly special country, like say France or Germany. God forbid. Still, there was no doubting what the report was seeking to do: namely, set off a debate about why Britain’s relationship with the United States might be in flux and should therefore be re-examined.

Such a rethink after Bush and now in the era of Obama – who has other, rather more important things on his mind than to worry about the sensibilities of the Brits – is to be welcomed. That said, the report suffers from one basic flaw: a disjuncture between the evidence presented and the conclusions apparently arrived at.

Thus while we are told that the relationship should not officially be referred to as being ‘special’, largely because the term is ‘misleading’ and might offend others if used too frequently, most of the evidence presented would appear to suggest that it is precisely that, most obviously in the area of intelligence (see p. 5). Nor does the special quality of the relationship end there. In the areas of trade, culture and finance for example, according to the report the two countries look like having an especially dense relationship – one of the ‘densest’ no less. Furthermore, on many big issues, the UK and the US look like they agree about most things. We even like to visit each other’s countries in our millions. We also seem to like each other quite a lot. And we exchange our pop stars and movie actors and actresses with ease.

Finally, as Douglas Hurd pointed out in his written evidence, there is no chance at all of the UK waging a major war - and waging it successfully - without the complete backing of the United States. In short, it all sounds pretty “special” whether or not you like to use the term.

But this is not the main problem or the real issue. Basically, it is not so much what is in the report that is significant, as much as what remains unstated or understated. Put another way: what is really going on here?

Three things I would speculate. First, in spite of all the nice words about Obama in the report, there is an uneasy sense ‘over here’ that ‘over there’ they really don’t give a damn any more. So, we had better get used to the fact; and what better way of getting ready for rejection at worst (indifference at best) than by acting a little bit coy?

Second, British power is on the wane – as Stryker Mcguire of the LSE pointed out in a much quoted essay published in Newsweek last year (‘Forget the Great in Britain’, 1 August 2009). Decline does all sorts of strange things to people and states, but one thing more than anything else is for those so afflicted to speculate at length about who they are, what they are, who loves them and who doesn’t. In this sense, I read this report as symptomatic of a crisis in the making about Britain’s position in the world.

Finally, there is no doubt that whatever the UK might have gained from the relationship – and it has not been inconsiderable - it has fed British illusions about its role in the world. This was fine during the Cold War perhaps, and even during the 1990s before the rise of China, the uneasy emergence of the European Union, and 9/11. Now the relationship is proving more of a liability – however special it might remain. And this is what the report is really trying to say without, however, saying it too bluntly (that might after all damage the ‘special relationship’).

But where does this all leave the UK? In a most uncomfortable position I would suggest. Uneasy and uncertain about a relationship from which it cannot escape in a world that is now more dangerous than ever – and dangerous in large part because of the way Blair joined forces with Bush – the UK is caught between a very hard rock and equally hard place: between an affair she cannot abandon and a future she cannot contemplate without having her powerful, muscular lover by her side holding her hand and reassuring her that she still remains attractive.

Professor Michael Cox is co-Director of LSE IDEAS

US-Russian Relations and Disarmament

Conclusion of a nuclear arms deal has infused US-Russian relations with a new sense of optimism reminiscent of the late 1980s amid indications that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s bid to “reset” relations with Moscow has borne fruit, and the phantom of a new “Cold War,” perceived by gloomy pundits in recent times, has faded at last. It is as if Washington and Moscow have resolved to resume their relationship from a historic point it had reached before Russia, convulsed by post-Soviet agony of defeat and impotence, spoiled America’s triumphant nineties with mean barking in Eastern Europe and devious plots, hatched in partnership with China, to ruin US-led new world order. Obama and Medvedev can stand tall shoulder-to-shoulder as once Gorbachev and Reagan had stood before a dawn of new partnership, and a promising future for the world.

Yet, in some respects, recent breakthroughs in US-Russian arms negotiations bring to mind not so much the hopeful late 1980s as the sober early 1970s, when US President Richard Nixon and the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev presided over the conclusion of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, and the broader détente it represented for Soviet-US relations. At the time the Soviet leadership hailed détente as an outcome of US acceptance of Soviet “equality”; for Brezhnev, détente symbolized his own legitimacy as a peacemaker and a ruler of a superpower. But better relations with Washington did not constrain Soviet foreign policy. By contrast, the Soviet Union became more assertive on the international stage, supporting quasi-revolutionary movements and militant clients, especially in Africa and the Middle East. Détente also had little effect on the Kremlin’s domestic struggle with dissidents of various stripes: screws were tightened, and opponents of the Soviet regime were silenced in prisons and asylums, or deported overseas.

Unfortunately, the “resetting” of US-Russian relations does not add up to a promising partnership Gorbachev and Reagan once looked forward to. There is no reason to think that the Kremlin will hold punches in the immediate neighborhood (e.g. Georgia or Ukraine) to please the Americans; by contrast, the legitimizing aura of an upbeat relationship with the United States will embolden Moscow to act with greater confidence vis-à-vis embittered foes of Russia’s regional hegemony. There is no doubt, on the other hand, that whatever may transpire in US-Russian relations, the Russian leadership will ruthlessly and consistently suppress domestic dissent, which had grown considerably in the last two years in view of deteriorating economic conditions and endemic corruption.

The Obama Administration may well close their eyes to these aspects of Russia’s domestic and foreign policy, and even ridicule critics for being unrealistic or moralistic, or ignoring Russia’s legitimate interests. In this respect, the lessons of the early 1970s are all the more pertinent. After all, who can argue that the moral relativism of Nixon and Kissinger were exceptionally useful in the making of triangular diplomacy, which had placed the US, demoralized by the Vietnam War and economic woes, in a position to play one foe (the USSR) against the other (China). But Obama is inconsistent, for although he has been willing to push for a better relationship with Russia, come what may, he has also antagonized China by selling weapons to Taiwan and complaining about the human rights’ record in the People’s Republic. Triangular diplomacy of the Obama-Clinton team has not worked out so well.

Circumstances change but history repeats itself. The détente of the 1970s was followed by the Second Cold War and new lows in Soviet-US relations. The dynamic of the Kremlin’s domestic and foreign policies maintains Russia on a course, which will only widen US-Russian antagonisms in the years ahead. I am not even confident that the prospects of Russia’s support for the US vis-à-vis Iran and North Korea have improved significantly with the “resetting” of relations; the Kremlin will do what it has done in the last few years – look after its own interests in both regions, and these are not so much to see that the lingering problems are resolved, but that they are not resolved on US terms. In the 1970s Nixon and Kissinger pioneered the concept of “linkage”: offering the prospect of better relations with the USSR in exchange for Moscow’s self-imposed moderation and cooperative attitude on a range of issues important to the US. It did not exactly work then. It will not work now.


Sergey Radchenko is a lecturer in Asian-American Relations at the University of Nottingham (Chinese campus). He is based in Ningbo, China and a Fellow of the LSE IDEAS Cold War Studies Programme.

Latin America and the Middle East: Contrasting Approaches

Judging from recent weeks, the Middle East’s engagement with the wider world seems to be directed by North-South relations. Washington’s proposal for sanctions against Iran’s nuclear programme came to a grinding halt in the UN while US vice-president Joe Biden was embarrassed during his visit to Israel by the announcement by Benyamin Netanyahu government to go ahead with further settlement building in east Jerusalem. Meanwhile Gaza has been on the receiving end of visits from the EU foreign minister, Catherine Ashton, and UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon on either side of a Quartet meeting in Moscow over how best to restart the peace process.

Less considered is the nature of the South's relationship with the Middle East. This has been brought into focus with President Lula of Brazil’s visit to Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories and Jordan last week and will be followed later in the year with a visit to Tehran. Lula’s visit came after trips from both the Israeli and Iranian presidents to South America at the end of last year who both competed for support for their respective positions.

However, the extent to which Latin America can offer anything other than token support is demonstrated by the limited nature of the political and economic tools at its disposal. A comparison of the two countries in the region with the greatest extra-regional projection, Venezuela and Brazil, demonstrates this clearly. Undermining their capacity to influence events in the Middle East are both structure and agency issues, respectively the lack of sufficient integration between the two regions and the relative position of its leaderships in relation on the main issues of the day respectively. That said, the different approaches taken by Venezuela and Brazil show the divergence of action that is possible in the continent and the nature of South-South relations and diplomacy.

The Israel-Palestine conflict

Israel’s position has deteriorated in Latin America since its foundation in 1948. At the time it received support from across the political spectrum. However, that goodwill was shattered in the eyes of the Left by its close association with the US after 1967 and its involvement in the training, assistance and supply of arms to right-wing governments in Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and El Salvador. While its involvement tarnished it with the left-wing politicians that have come to power in the region over the past decade, it has also become an increasingly peripheral concern to Latin American elites: according to Carlos Escudé of the Universidad del CEMA in Buenos Aires changes in the region’s societies and the increasingly marginal role of Jewish communities and their leaders. Meanwhile, Palestinian support has grown. The first and second Arab-South American summit declarations in 2005 and 2009 highlight the cross-regional support for a return to the 1967 lines, the dismantlement of settlements in east Jerusalem, the removal of the separation wall and support for the Arab peace initiative and the road map.

Of the two main Latin American powers, Venezuela has been the most overtly political. Hugo Cháez’s government recalled its ambassador in the wake of the Israel-Lebanon conflict in 2006 and – along with Bolivia – broken diplomatic relations with Israel following the Gaza conflict in 2008-09. This put them in the same camp as Cuba, which has not recognized Israel since 1973. In contrast Brazil appears to have adopted a more soft-footed approach and emphasizing the economic dimension. However, even here the scope for South America’s largest economy to influence the conflict remains limited on two counts. One, the prospect for an economic boycott of Israel is arguably weaker following a recent free trade agreement between it and Mercosur. Two, Israeli economic integration with Brazil is very limited. Although Israel’s exports to Brazil hit a high of $1.2bn in 2008, this was only a fraction of its estimated $54bn total that year.

Iran’s nuclear programme

In contrast to the Israel-Palestine conflict Latin American positions in relation to Iran’s nuclear programme are arguably more equivocal. On one hand the Arab-South American summit declarations stress the goal of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East – an aim that is as much directed against Israel, the only nuclear power in the region, as it is against Iran. On the other hand, the two main powers in South America, Brazil and Venezuela, have endorsed the notion of a ‘peaceful’ nuclear programme for Iran. This is reflected in the position of both over the past few years. Of the two, Venezuela is arguably the closer to Iran politically. In 2006 the Chávez government voted against referring the Iranian nuclear programme to the UN Security Council. More recently the two governments have collaborated in the search for uranium deposits in Venezuela to run their respective nuclear programmes. By contrast Brazil has sought more distance. It limited itself to abstaining in the November 2009 International Atomic Energy Agency vote while rejecting Washington’s proposal for sanctions last month. At the same time Lula has sought to link the Israel-Palestine conflict with Iran’s nuclear programme.

The more ambiguous position of these countries – and the region more generally in relation to Iran – may arguably reflect some of the shared historical legacy. Whereas Israel has courted US support since 1967, today’s Latin American and Iranian leaderships have adopted a more sceptical – even confrontational – stance towards Washington. Latin American and Iranian democracy have both been undermined by US intervention, including its support for coups, including the removal of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 and João Goulart in Brazil in 1964 and the attempted removal of Chávez in 2002. In addition, Washington was committed to the repressive regimes which followed those successful coups.

Notwithstanding their shared experience, it is not apparent that either Brazil or Venezuela has achieved much in relation to confirming Iran’s nuclear programme as peaceful – or indeed discouraging Tehran from the use of confrontational discourse in relation to it. Politically, Chávez is arguably less able to act as a mediator in this regard, given his own antagonistic nature. And while Lula seeks greater conciliation, the means for soft power influence – through economic pressure – remains similarly limited: the volume of trade between Brazil and Iran remains small, at around $1.5bn and comprising mainly Brazilian exports. This compares to Iran’s total imports of $67.25bn and $57.16bn in 2008 and 2009 respectively.

Guy Burton is a research associate on the Latin America International Affairs Programme at the Ideas Centre.

“The Connection Was Reset”: Google goes to War for the West

Internet users in China last night discovered that the domain Google.cn redirected to Google.com.hk, as the world’s largest search engine shut down its Chinese servers and redirected traffic to Hong Kong, where – crucially – the search engine results would be uncensored by Google themselves.  Of course, users with IP addresses in mainland China attempting to search for material deemed ‘sensitive’ by the Chinese authorities would still be prevented from accessing information by the ‘Great Firewall’, with its tell-tale error message: ‘the connection was reset’.

Yet Google’s decision is of limited significance to Chinese surfers.  Experienced activists in China have ways and means of getting round the authorities’ controls, for example by using IP blocking, VPNs and proxy severs.  Indeed, within China Google accounts for only around 20% of searches, with the home-grown search engine Baidu holding the kind of dominance Google is used to enjoying, with 75% of all searches.  Having said that, China’s technology for blocking and filtering web results is less sophisticated and effective than the rules Google voluntarily applied to its Chinese ‘spiders’ four years ago, so the move does represent a very small, but nonetheless welcome, boost fro freedom of information in China.

Nor is Google’s decision of particular significance for the finances of the company itself in the short term, even if the decision has been taken – as was the case in 2006 when Google decided to filter its results in China – very much from a business perspective.  China accounts for less than 1% of Google’s total income: whilst companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have been eager to gain access to a rapidly-growing market with up to a billion new customers, the fact is that currently revenues from China are insignificant.  Indeed the business decision that Google appears to have taken is that their stance on China has begun to erode their position in other markets.  Google’s idealistic founders may have based the company around the slogan ‘don’t be evil’, but that clever piece of marketing disguised the essential truth behind the search engine’s success: yes Google was fast; yes it returned different, and ultimately better, results; but the key to Google’s dominance was that their users had trust in it.  And user trust is all the more important as firms compete to control user data as more and more computing takes place ‘in the cloud’.  So whilst Google’s decision is based on a long-term business argument that has brought it great success to date, it risks little in the short term in the Chinese market.  Google also clearly believes that Chinese censorship is unsustainable, and that once controls are removed it will be able to return to that market victorious, able to generate user trust quickly on the basis that it – unlike Microsoft or Yahoo – has a genuine commitment to open information, that it had not been evil.

And here is the rub: by revealing the Chinese government’s widespread hacking regime – a fairly open secret in the IT world – and by withdrawing from China, Google has raised the stakes in the ideological conflict surrounding the rights of people versus the rights of governments; it has essentially gone to war for liberalism.  Whilst China may have embraced the economic tenets of liberal capitalism fairly convincingly over the last two decades, its attitudes to political liberalism lag far behind.  Ultimately – as Google rightly believes – sociologically the two cannot be separated: free consumption requires political freedom and vice-versa, and the progress of Chinese economic growth, particularly as it seeks to develop its economy past the core manufacturing stage to focus on R&D and information services, cannot hope to proceed smoothly without political liberalisation.  Google’s actions, however, are a spur to that process, which will both embolden activists, weak though they remain in the face of the Chinese state, and more importantly detract from China’s ability to continue to progress its economy into more advanced sectors.

It is, as well, inconceivable that Google would have taken this move without consultation with the United States government.  Whilst the administration is truly a ‘team of rivals’ with regards to policy on China, with Hilary Clinton significantly more hawkish than the President and Vice-President, the government’s enlisting of Twitter as a policy adjunct during the Green protests in Iran demonstrates that the administration understands the power of open information in driving social and political change conducive to US interests.  So while China is able to defy the diplomatic demands of the US on the level of the Yuan, on sanctions for Iran, or on human rights, in Google it may encounter an irresistible force for the spread of political liberalism.

Dr Nicholas Kitchen  is a Fellow of LSE IDEAS and Programme Coordinator of the LSE IDEAS Transatlantic Relations Programme.

Egypt: What are the potential internal political affects of the Gaza wall?

Welcome to the Shifting Sands blog at LSE IDEAS. We invite PhD students and academics from throughout the UK and abroad to analyse current events in the Middle East and add to the ongoing deliberations over policy prescriptions. Our next contributor, Guy Burton, explores the political implications of the Gaza wall inside Egypt.

We look forward to exploring both regional and topical issues relating to current events.
Amber Holewinski, Editor, LSE IDEAS Middle East International Affairs Programme Blog

Egypt: What are the potential internal political affects of the Gaza wall?

By Guy Burton

In December foreign protestors travelled to Egypt with the purpose of marking the anniversary of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, which left approximately 1400 Palestinians and thirteen Israelis dead. However, their efforts resulted in a crackdown by the authorities who sought to prevent them from crossing the Sinai Peninsula to the border crossing of Rafah.

Cairo’s response was in line with its Gaza policy. The Egyptian leadership has been active in trying to insulate the situation in Gaza from spilling over domestically. To date it seems that it has largely succeeded, although it is uncertain how sustainable it will be, especially given next year’s presidential election and the likelihood of the current president, Hosni Mubarak, stepping down after 30 years in power.

Under Mubarak, the Egyptian leadership sought a mediating role between Israel and Palestine, a role which is supported by Washington. Egypt’s engagement has cost it regional influence, losing public Arab and Muslim support to the more confrontational Syrian and Iranian leaderships. Yet arguably Cairo’s stance could not be otherwise: Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip has put increasing pressure on Rafah as the main point of entry. Unable to meet the demand, Palestinians in Gaza have increasingly resorted to the use of underground tunnels to bring in everyday items. But it was also through these routes that weapons have been brought into Gaza, with which militias have targeted Israeli settlements on the other side.

As a result, Egypt has adopted a two-fold strategy. First, it has been involved in various negotiations between Israel and the dominant Hamas party that gained power in Gaza in 2007. Although not a supporter of Hamas, Mubarak’s government has contributed to the stop-start talks over the captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in 2006 and helped broker a ceasefire between the two parties during the first half of 2008. Second, it has responded to pressure from both the Israelis and the US to stop the use of these tunnels. Consequently, over the past three years it has stepped up security measures and surveillance along the border, bringing the level of smuggling down from its peak in 2008.

Even though Egypt has received regional opprobrium for its stance, the policy has yet to compromise the regime domestically. Although there were several attacks in Cairo in the months following the Israel-Gaza conflict, including the bombing of the Khan el-Khalili market which left one foreign tourist dead, they were soon discounted as the harbinger of a more organised campaign against the government.

Although the most visible demonstrations over Gaza have come from the main opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood, its capacity to destabilise the regime remains severely constrained. Not only is its level of support modest, it is unable to project itself sufficiently to challenge the regime. The government’s use of legal constraints prevents the Muslim Brotherhood from organising as a political party, thereby forcing its candidates to stand as independents and excluding it from running for the presidency.

That the regime is so dominant demonstrates the manner in which it has controlled the political process in Egypt. Despite a process of economic and political liberalisation (during which state participation in the economy has declined and the number of civil society organisations has grown), the leadership continues to count on both the support of key actors (i.e. big business, the military, internal security forces and the bureaucracy) and various forms of coercion. This helped maintain a weak opposition in both political and civil society, the Brotherhood excepted. Consequently Mubarak’s successor – if it is not his son, Gamal – will most likely emerge from within the regime.

Similarly, the regime has avoided any fallout from the global financial crisis. With an economy dominated by tourism, exports, and revenues from the Suez Canal, there was concern in late 2008. Figures from the first quarter of 2009 reinforced those fears: GDP fell by 4% and unemployment rose above 9%. Meanwhile, poverty levels increased from 19% to 21%. However, last month the IMF reported that Egypt’s economy had been insulated by its lack of exposure to financial markets and structured products. The Prime Minister, Ahmed Nazif, reported that while the unemployment level remains stable at the current rate, the economy is now projected to grow by 5% this year.

However, that the regime appears securely in control does not mean that a smooth transition of power or policy continuity is assured next year. On one hand, risk may emerge from the presidential election itself, especially if the government candidate beats an independent candidate who has done well enough to arouse suspicion about the result. Like Iran last year and Mexico in 2006 (which like Egypt was dominated by one party until 2000), should this happen, then a ‘stolen election’ could act as an issue around which the domestic opposition could coalesce and grow. On the other hand, Mubarak’s successor will have to contend with Egypt’s declining regional credibility as an international mediator. This may encourage the new president to recalibrate policy strategy in relation to Gaza to conciliate Hamas and its supporters in Egypt.

But for either threat to emerge will depend on the salience of certain issues over the next 18 months. Among these factors will include whether economic recovery proves sustainable and the amount of domestic sympathy towards Gaza. The latter will be especially tested if public opinion increasingly sees the government’s Gaza policy as little different to that of Israel’s. Indeed, matters may not be helped by Egypt’s near completion of a controversial construction of a 10km long, 30m high steel wall on the Gaza border. Although it has been built to discourage smuggling through the tunnels, it may be seen as resembling the Separation Wall that Israel is building between itself and the Palestinians in the West Bank.

Guy Burton is a research associate for the LSE Ideas Centre.

Next Week: Lebanon and Syria: What are the prospects for improved relations?

Saudi Arabia: What are the effects of the global financial crisis on Saudi Arabia's economic prospects?

Welcome to the Shifting Sands blog at LSE IDEAS. We invite PhD students and academics from throughout the UK and abroad to analyse current events in the Middle East and add to the ongoing deliberations over policy prescriptions. Our next contributor, Matthew Hinds, explores the current and possible future effects of the global financial crisis on Saudi Arabia.

We look forward to exploring both regional and topical issues relating to current events.
Amber Holewinski, Editor, LSE IDEAS Middle East International Affairs Programme Blog

Saudi Arabia: What are the effects of the global financial crisis on Saudi Arabia's economic prospects?

By Matthew Hinds

Although Saudi Arabia has to a great extent been insulated from the global downturn, the Kingdom’s economic future is not necessarily boundless and bright. Certainly Saudi Arabia’s excellent cash flow, liquidity, and its windfall of astounding oil profits throughout the decade left the Kingdom in a strong position when the financial crisis began. Financial analysts from Jadwa Investment Company project economic growth to rise to 3.8% in 2010 compared to the static figure of .15% in 2009. Amongst the Riyadh and Jeddah financial insiders, there exists a quiet confidence that the Saudi economy will continue to grow on the back of aggressive government spending, improved conditions in the private sector, and the increasing international demand for oil. Despite the American economy’s recent tailspin, the Saudi Arabian government announced in February that it was in the Kingdom’s future economic interest that the riyal will continue to be pegged to the dollar. One of the direct changes stemming from the financial crisis is that it has cajoled the government and banking authorities to become more diligent with regards to consumer credit and reviewing risk profiles; a weak link in the world of Islamic finance - see Dubai’s recent financial upheaval. Highly publicized episodes like the 2009 “Saad Scandal” implicated Maan Al Sanea and the Algosaibi family - pillars of the Saudi financial community - to a $10 billion Ponzi scheme, proving that even Saudi Arabia was not immune to its own Madoff-type ignominy. But whereas in the UK and USA the financial crisis has been viewed in existential terms, a bellwether moment in which Britons and Americans have questioned the very foundations of their own capitalist models, the Saudi Arabian government responded to the crisis as if it were an aberration, emphasizing the need to tweak rather than overhaul their banking system.

Overall, the lack of urgency shown by Saudi Arabia in response to the financial crisis is understandable. In those dark autumn days of 2008, when the United States’ mortgage system was unraveling, when Lehman Brothers was collapsing, when global capitalism itself was teetering on the brink, Saudi Arabia’s oil wells ignored the chaos and kept pumping. Certainly, Saudi Arabia was adversely affected by the extreme fluctuation in oil prices during the economic downturn, from $147 a barrel on July 2008 to $38 in December 2008. But it should not be overlooked that the Kingdom still holds over 20% of the world’s “proven” oil supplies, and it is rumoured that those with market knowledge estimate that the likely figure is closer to 40%, due to oilfields that have been undeclared. Furthermore, with Saudi Arabia’s current oil capacity so well known, it is easy to overlook that south of Riyadh promising new oilfields are being discovered. These new fields have minimal lifting costs and contain “sweet crude,” high quality oil with even lower refinement costs. In the aftermath of the world financial crisis, as the hopeful promise of the Copenhagen Climate Conference fades away, Saudi Arabian oil will become even more of a necessary entity in the “new normal” global economy. Oil will remain one of the bedrocks of this earthier kind of 21st century capitalism, providing material for many industries, including plastics, metals, paints and fertilizers. Companies like Sabic have not even begun to scratch the surface when it comes to Saudi Arabia’s unrealized potential in petrochemicals, but in the future expect them to dominate.

With this all being said, spotlighting the limited effects of the global financial crisis and the country’s oil paramountcy draws attention away from Saudi Arabia’s most crucial economic challenge: the question of how to integrate the Kingdom’s swelling population into its wider economy. As it stands now, the vast welfare state which Saudi Arabia’s government provides for its subjects was constructed for a different age; the age of Yamani circa 1973, when 5 million inhabitants could easily be taken care of by the quadrupling of oil prices. During this boon period, many Saudis were unwilling to accept low wages in the private sector, hence the country’s overreliance on a large expatriate workforce. For the 28 million Saudi subjects living in the economic downturn of 2010, “Saudization” ( the government’s policy of employing Saudi nationals in the private sector) cannot come fast enough as the current structure is unable to provide the same standard of living of years past. This reality becomes compounded when one factors that sixty percent of the population is under the age of 21. Saudi Arabian unemployment stood at 15% in 2009, but many experts believe that the government is trying to hide the real figure, which is said to hover at 25%.

Since ascending to the throne in 2005, the conservatively perceived King Abdullah has surprised many with his zeal for reform and desire to face up to these demographically rooted economic challenges. His initiatives to create jobs, extend the middle class and invest in education have come in many shapes and sizes, but all have been equally significant. As recently as March 7, 2010, King Abdullah addressed the Shoura Council (Saudi Arabia’s consultation body) calling for the creation of 200,000 jobs in the education sector to help facilitate Saudi Arabia’s ambitious “20 year employment strategy.” This trend toward emphasizing education has been made visible by the establishment of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Having only opened in September 2009, KAUST is already ranked one of the top research centres in the world. However, what may have the greatest impact in terms of Saudi Arabia future economic output is King Abdullah’s decision to make KAUST the country’s first co-ed university. By promoting the normalization of mix gender working environments, women will be able to make a larger contribution to the country’s indigenous workforce, which will in turn give Saudi Arabia’s overstretched welfare system a needed rest.

Much like his older-half brother King Faisal, Abdullah is a pious reformer seeking to carefully bridge the gap between Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world, without causing the Kingdom to lose grip of its supreme Islamic identity. Though King Abdullah should be applauded for emending broken policies of the past in an effort to save his country’s future, he reminds this writer of Alexander II of Russia, the “Czar liberator”; a fateful notion of too little too late. Still possessing a crushing handshake, the King is nevertheless 85 years old. Therefore, coming out of the financial crisis, Saudi Arabia will continue to be a global economic force as long as it has the will to carry out social and economic reforms after King Abdullah is gone.

Matthew Hinds is a PhD candidate at the LSE in the International History Department. His Phd research focuses on Anglo-American Relations and Saudi Arabia. In the department he taught a class on Anglo-American Relations in the Middle East, 1952-1970.

Next Week: Egypt: What are the potential internal political affects of the Gaza wall?

Iraq: What happens when America pulls out?

Welcome to the Shifting Sands blog at LSE IDEAS. We invite PhD students and academics from throughout the UK and abroad to analyse current events in the Middle East and add to the ongoing deliberations over policy prescriptions. Our next contributor, Yaniv Voller, explores the implications of America’s full withdrawal from Iraq.

We look forward to exploring both regional and topical issues relating to current events.
Amber Holewinski, Editor, LSE IDEAS Middle East International Affairs Programme Blog

Iraq after America Leaves

By Yaniv Voller

Predicting the future is not an easy task. Nevertheless, Iraq’s political history provides some insights which might allow us to assess its post-American occupation future and provide at least one possible scenario.

As gloomy as it may sound, this writer believes that it will get worse – at least for the Iraqi people. It seems as though Nouri al-Maliki is taking the notorious part of the Iraqi dictator, relying on manipulation of sectarian and tribal loyalties, a weak party structure to boost his network of patronage, and a personal paramilitary committed to certain sects/regions. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that Maliki, or anyone else, can be cruel as Saddam Hussein – but the possibility of yet another dictator in Baghdad seems very plausible.

In fact, Iraq’s history offers no other alternative to dictatorship. It is not a matter of culture – but rather the fragile composition of the Iraqi population: sectarianism and tribalism have been played for almost a decade by the different governments in Baghdad and the tradition of patronage is embedded in the Iraqi political system. It is too easy and too tempting for a ruler to succumb to dictatorship, particularly one in the position of Maliki, who is striving to gain more power in the periphery to take advantage of this system.

Indeed, there are some alternatives. One which is espoused by scholars and practitioners, as well the Kurdish leadership in northern Iraq, is a federacy. Nonetheless, a weak Baghdad means that this federacy might end up as a confederacy, where the different components have no loyalty to the idea of an integrated Iraq and to the idea of Iraqi nationality. From confederacy, the road to Iraq’s disintegration is short. Although some may welcome such an event, it would only cause chaos and further resentment in a region already torn apart by the Shiite-Sunni and Arab/Turkish-Kurdish divides.

Another alternative is the Lebanese-style confessional system. According to such a system, every position in the government administration will be allocated according to sectarian affiliation – where the Shiites, for example, have the premiership, Kurds the presidency and Sunnis the Ministry of defence. In fact, the current Iraqi system is a de facto confessional system, with senior positions already allotted based on ethnic and religious lines. The institutionalisation of this system has been advocated fervently since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, either by those who perceive it as necessary to compensate the Sunnis for their loss of power, or by those who believe that such a system would represent more justly the Shi’a majority. However, if any lesson can be drawn from the Lebanese case, it is that this system does not work: it is too enticing for both internal and external forces to manipulate such a system. The system perpetuates artificial animosities as well as sectarian affiliation – which are the last things that a nation trying to rebuild itself needs. Furthermore, the confessional system is far from meritocratic, as positions are used as means to appease rather than used to build viable state institutions. Functioning state institutions are integral to saving Iraq.

Indeed, a viable federal system, which will compromise Baghdad’s power but will preserve the idea of an Iraqi nation, is a blessed idea. But it requires a brave leader, free of sectarian loyalties and committed to the idea of the Iraqi nation. A leader who knows that by giving up on Kirkuk, for instance, he or she might give the Kurdish people the hope of being safe in their homeland as Iraqi citizens who are proud of their Kurdish heritage; that is aware of the fact that the Sunnis feel threatened by the growing Iranian influence, even if it is only an imagined one; and that the Shiites deserve compensation for years of marginalisation. Nouri al-Maliki has proven to not be this kind of leader.

The nightmarish scenarios, in which either the Ba’th or al-Qaeda overtake Iraq as soon as the Americans leave, seem quite farfetched. Even the threat of growing Iranian influence on Iraq seems less plausible now, though Maliki has proven that Iran is his natural supporter. So we are left with yet another tyrant – and with a torn apart, miserable Iraqi people. It might be good in the short run, at least from a regional perspective – but it is a recipe for instability and disaster in the long term.

Yaniv Voller is a second year PhD student at the London School of Economics and is interested in secessionism, legitimacy and recognition, non-state actors, Iraq, and Turkey. He is also a graduate teaching assistant in the International History department at the LSE.

Next Week: Saudi Arabia: What are the effects of the global financial crisis on Saudi Arabia's economic prospects?

Brazil's rejection of sanctions against Iran: US-Brazilian relations in context

Hilary Clinton’s failure to get Brazil to sign on to US-backed sanctions against Iran’s nuclear programme was to be expected: throughout his presidency, Lula has adopted a conciliatory approach to foreign policy. He has maintained good relations with various antagonists of the US, including Cuba and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. But the event also shows the contradictory nature of Washington’s relationship with Brazil and raises questions about its foreign policy direction after Lula’s departure at the end of the year.

On one hand, Washington’s request highlights its expectations that Brazil follow the US lead on global matters. And indeed, for much of the past half-century Brazilian foreign policy has done so, especially during the Cold War when it placed itself firmly within the American orbit. Indeed, the US was among the first countries to recognise the anti-communist military regime that overthrew the government of João Goulart in 1964 and turned a blind eye to many of the human rights abuses that followed, reaching a peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

On the other hand, since the end of the Cold War Brazil has adopted an increasingly multilateral and independent line. Under both the George W Bush and Barack Obama presidencies there have been signs that the US is happy for Brazil to play a greater role, especially at the regional role. This is reflected in Brazil’s leading role in the continent-wide Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) through which it helped defuse the Bolivian coup crisis in 2008. Similarly, the US has been happy for Brazil to lead the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti since the mid-2000s and has been notably silent over the current Falkland Islands/Malvinas dispute – at a time when Lula has been actively speaking on behalf of Argentina.

However, Brazil’s more robust international engagement has also causes headaches for the US. Under Lula’s predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002), Brazil was at the forefront against the developed world’s use of agricultural subsidies in the current Doha trade round and was active in challenging the global (or arguably American) patents regime by allowing local production of retroviral drugs for HIV/AIDS sufferers.

The question is whether Brazil-US relations will change significantly next year, when Lula’s successor is installed in Brasília. If Lula’s preferred candidate, Dilma Rouseff is elected, more of the same should be expected. If her challenger, who is likely to be São Paulo state governor José Serra, wins the situation may be less certain. As health minister it was Serra who presided over the controversial retroviral drugs policy. At the same time though, he was critical of the Iranian president’s visit to Brazil last November. In this respect he echoed Cardoso, who saw the visit as ‘rhetorical’, since Brazil has little influence in the Middle East. Consequently, could a change of leadership therefore herald a change in Brazil’s foreign policy generally and specifically on Iran?

Guy Burton is a research associate on the Latin America International Affairs Programme at the Ideas Centre.

Understanding the End of the Cold War

The end of the Cold War is arguably the most important event to hit the discipline of international relations since the first chair in the subject was created at Aberystwyth in 1919. Academics in the field almost universally failed to predict it and our theories didn’t appear to explain it, and this spawned both heated debate and new thinking within the field. What follows is a brief sketch with pointers to resources on the topic – some well known, others less so.

John Gaddis’ “International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War” is a good place to start. Gaddis places the blame for IR failing to predict the Cold War ending as it did squarely with the deterministic social-science approach to the discipline that failed to accept indeterminacy, even as the sciences themselves were embracing unpredictability. Ted Hopf’s response and their correspondence the next volume is worth reading too, particularly for his more fundamental critique that it was not so much the theories themselves as the sociology of the discipline that prevented scholars asking the right questions.

Michael Cox, in contrast, focuses his contribution for Volume 3 of Sage’s Twentieth Century International Relations on the empirical reasons for the failure. The implication of Cox’s argument is that it was poor information rather than poor theory that lay at the heart of IR’s inability to forsee peaceful Soviet collapse.

Of course, some scholars did get close to predicting the way in which the Cold War would end, notably the macro-sociologist Randall Collins. In his “What Theories Predicted the State Breakdowns and Revolutions of the Soviet Bloc?” Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Vol. 14 (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1992) he critically evaluates the quality of both his own and others’ predictions.

Of course, in assessing the causes of failure to predict the end of the Cold War, a great proletarian spanner is thrown in the works by the degree of disagreement as to the direct causes of that event itself. Was it Reagan’s policies, as Patman contends? The effects of the Afghanistan War, and not anything intrinsic to the Cold War itself, that precipitated a collapse of empire, a thesis advanced by Reuveney and Prakash? A shift in ideas within Soviet elites, as per Matthew Evangelista among others, or shifts in the external environment as proposed by Deudney and Ikenberry? Indeed, such is the complexity of the event that Ned Lebow and Stein resort to ‘non-linear confluence’ as their preferred model of causation to explain the events of 1989-91 in Richard Hermann’s volume ‘Ending the Cold War’. Such is the confusion that James Lee Ray and Bruce Russet feel the need to reassure us that despite appearances, the end of the Cold War doesn’t render scientific prediction in international politics obsolete.

The main target of this plethora of explanations and acknowledgement of complexity is neorealist theory. The classic hatchet-job is done by Richard Ned Lebow in his “The Long Peace, the end of the Cold War and the failure of Realism”. Constructivist explanations, such as those from Koslowski and Kratochwil and Tuomas Forsberg, reflect the boom in this post-positivist approach. Innepolitik is back in vogue in Matthew Evangelista’s “Paradox of State Strength”.

However, it is not for nothing that realism has been the dominant paradigm of international relations since the Peloponnesian War. Despite having taken quite a beating, realism fights back off the ropes. Stephen Walt provides a strong defense of realism in light of the end of the Cold War and Brooks and Wohlforth first reevaluate the supposed ‘landmark case for ideas’ and later emphasise the role of economic constraints in Wohlforth’s edited volume Cold War Endgame. However, perhaps the most perceptive of all the realist defences is Wohlforth’s first attempt in 1995-6, which despite constructing a realist account chides realists for thinking that because such an explanation is possible that somehow realism stands unbowed.

The end of the Cold War ensures that IR theory is a more plural and epistemologically varied place. Risse-Kappen and Grunberry therefore accurately call the end of the Cold War “A Time of Reckoning” in Allan and Goldmann’s edited volume, and for Wohlforth it was certainly a “Reality Check”. Hopmann’s review essay provides excellent coverage of recent theoretical developments.

International Relations is surely a better place for these developments and the debate that produced them. The ‘neo-neo’ debate that obsessed the discipline for so long now seems as irrelevant and obscure as it surely was. Whether IR theory is any better placed to predict major events in international politics is debatable, probably doubtful, but that International Relations is better equipped to explain those events when they happen is indisputable.

A quake to Chile's social reallity

Indeed what happened in Chile is terrible, and continuously shocking. Every day that passes we are more able to realize what really occurred, as communications are improving and water returns to the sea. Like always, those who had little are the ones who lost all.
The Chilean quake is also a big slap on the face to a society that had become increasingly conformist. A society that ironically was just a few months ago celebrating its status of new OECD member, but now crashes with its pure reality; a country with a social inequality deeper than the great cannon, which splits the nation in two raw groups: those still in the OECD, and those who cannot survive a natural disaster.
Chile's social policy for years has had a strong focus in reducing poverty. In fact, we congratulated ourselves as chileans for reducing poverty from 40% in early 1990s to 15% in mid 2000s. These numbers freezed our senses and we increasingly began to believe that the poverty problem was on a right road for being solved, without paying attention to the large population which, literally lived slightly above the line in a place invisible to poverty-line numbers and OECD standards.
It is no surprise that after the quake poverty and inequallity will rise in Chile. Recovery is not a task of 5 days, nor 5 weeks, not even 5 months. This may take perhaps 5 years!, time enough to rebuild houses, create jobs, and re-design our social policy with a broader focus that is comprehensive with poverty and inequality as roots of the same problem (the notion of "social exclusion" as distinguished from "poverty" might be a good idea). Poverty lines and standards give us a good idea of are development speed, but in no case they should be considered as ends themselves.
There is now a lot to be done. I have no doubt that the chilean people will stand up again such as we have from previous quakes (1962,1985). I just hope that in the long run we do not forget a large part of the population that live in vulnerable condition. They not only need today's assistantce, but also long term social policies that re-focus on the grounds of their social exclusion from the promised prosperity.

Felipe I. Heusser