How to stop Putin’s war against Ukraine

Article by Vladimir Dubrovskiy

April 20, 2022

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Summary

Vladimir Dubrovskiy is a political economist based in Kyiv (Senior Economist at CASE Ukraine). In his commentary, Vladimir shares his understandably raw and personal views on what lies behind Putin’s war against Ukraine and what can and should be done to halt it.

…Some in the West think Putin is obsessed with Ukraine because he sincerely believes that Ukrainians and Russians are ‘just two branches of the same people’, and there is a small group of ‘Nazi-Ukrainians’ that sway this ‘part of Russia’ towards the West. This is why he is waging his war. But he does not call the rest of the European nations ‘the same people’, and that may mean he is unlikely to go further west and attack NATO countries – especially given that they are much better protected. Therefore, the argument goes, ‘let us sit on the fence and wait until this madness ends, then get back to business as usual – especially because we do need Russian resources’.

There is perhaps some truth in that line of reasoning. Putin seems to be obsessed with what he and his ideologists call the ‘Ukrainian problem’. Putin seems to hate the Ukrainians not for their ethnicity, culture and language (which are, indeed, quite close to the Russian ones, although still distinct), but first and foremost for the difference in values. The freedom and dignity that Ukrainians proved to cherish above all are precisely those European values that are inimical to the Russian system of rules based on a strong patronal ‘vertical of power’. Putin indeed feels threatened by Ukraine, though not in the military sense, but rather through the idea of spreading these values and exemplifying their virtues to the Russian people. Therein lies the main thrust of the Kremlin campaign against Ukraine – but couched invariably as a ‘threat from NATO’.

The main enemy for Putin and his inner circle is the West that ‘defeated’ the USSR in the Cold War and imposed (as the Kremlin depicts it) its ‘unnatural’ values on the Ukrainian and Russian people. The Russians, in his opinion, have mostly withstood this pressure (except for some ‘traitors to the nation’), and some ‘wrong-turns’ in the 1990s. However, ‘the Ukrainian branch of the Russian people’ in Putin’s view emerged as ‘turncoats’ who had succumbed to the West’s soft power and betrayed their ‘common past’. They rejected pro-Moscow Yanukovich in 2014 and instead turned towards Europe. Those ‘traitors’ are detested even more than the main enemy (the West), but the latter perversely remain the ultimate target.

Any approach to tackling Putin and to stopping this war, the author says, has to be premised on a realisation that Russia is already engaged in a war with the West, and not only with Ukraine as part of it. And what has not worked thus far is a policy of pandering to Putin.

The full commentary can be accessed here.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual author and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.

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International Relations and Geopolitics

Ukraine Conflict

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Making their voices heard: Relations between the UK’s nations and regions and the EU post-Brexit

Article by Dr Carolyn Rowe

April 7, 2022

Making their voices heard: Relations between the UK’s nations and regions and the EU post-Brexit

At a FPC event this week, we learnt three things about Britain, its constituent territories and the EU.[1] Firstly, that the UK’s engagement in the EU since Brexit does not adequately or appropriately reflect the multiplicity of perspectives on EU issues around the UK. Secondly, that since Brexit, opportunities for a more structured, UK-wide form of engagement or dialogue with our European partners has dissipated, running the risk that British voices and British experience are excluded from significant debates in and around the EU policy-making space. And thirdly, that a more flexible and inclusive approach to the development of European policy in the UK as we transition to become a ‘third country’ could help to foster more positive working relationships across the UK’s multiple jurisdictions and facilitate a holistic framework for interaction with our nearest trading bloc. The net result was to prompt some innovative thinking about how best to manage Britain’s future relationship with the EU.

The reality is that in a competitive marketplace of voices in Brussels, the UK’s perspectives risk being lost in a cacophony of noise. Now that we no longer have a seat around the negotiating table, the UK’s interests will be best served by strengthening its EU footprint at the present juncture. Effective political engagement starts with good intelligence, and that can easily be facilitated through establishing a robust interface for EU-UK dialogue in the Brussels space.

The UK and the EU since Brexit

International relations in the strictest sense remains something that national government is responsible for, and in the UK that is very clear; international relations have always been a reserved competence, never devolved. The EU’s policy portfolio however overlaps considerably with those policy fields which are devolved competences, and in areas such as fisheries and agriculture and various aspects of the environmental and climate change portfolio, there are very clear reasons as to why the devolved authorities in particular have had a legitimate need to be engaged in the European decision-making process.

But Brexit has fundamentally re-configured the opportunity structure for engaging with the EU and Britain’s European partners. So what now? How can we continue to maintain meaningful partnerships between Britain’s nations and regions and the European policy community? What specifically would be the purpose of such engagement? What kind of benefits can direct interactions between the nations and regions of the UK and the European policy community actually deliver?

The UK in the EU’s information ‘marketplace’

There are clear models which demonstrate how a multiplicity of ‘national’ voices can enhance working relations between a state and the EU, rather than damage them. Within the EU institutional ecosystem, that is to say, the numerous forums for dialogue and exchange of ideas on the policy level, most of which have emerged on the basis of a functional need to communicate rather than as a result of EU leadership, there is an expectation that the subnational components of individual states will be present. Regions and local authorities are part of the common currency of EU dialogue in the policy space. They serve as a key means to aggregate particular, locally-based voices and to channel these into the thinking in and around both EU funding programmes, such as those designed to support innovation and research, and on specific policies such as around renewables or technical standardisation processes. But how can we ensure that all parts of the UK are embedded in this practice?

The UK’s total EU representative footprint has shrunk massively in recent years as the reality of scarce public resources has meant that most of the UK’s regional outposts have had to close. Where we do see continued high level engagement is from the UK’s devolved authorities, notably the Scottish and Welsh presences in the city. The Scottish Government’s EU office for instance, has increased the size of its team and continues to focus on core policies of relevance to the delivery of the Scottish Government’s domestic priorities: on net zero and on inclusive growth, for instance. The Brussels office continues to manage Scotland’s effective partnerships with relevant contacts, such as regional representations from EU member states and beyond, with national governments and with other interest associations. By extension, these activities effectively connect the Scottish Government’s policy work with the EU institutions.

Many of our EU partners regretted the UK’s exit from the EU system not just for emotional reasons but for the cold fact that our expertise and our engagement are world class. We could efficiently, effectively and comfortably lead the policy debates in areas such as renewable energy or precision engineering. Our ability to showcase our industrial capacity or our technological expertise in core areas of EU policy was greatly enhanced through a multi-level, multi-venue presence in relevant EU circles. The UK operated not just in the formal processes for engagement with the EU institutions, but within the wider EU ecosystem, where organised interests from across the policy spectrum and across the world debate and exchange on a whole host of issues.

Embracing territorial perspectives on the EU

For federal states in the EU, such as Germany, and others with a significant degree of asymmetrical territorial autonomy, such as Spain, direct regional engagement in the European space offers the scope to improve the governance of domestic responsibilities with a significant EU overlap. Their combined substate workforce in Brussels outnumbers that of their national government’s representation. For the UK as a third country, however, the game play might look outwardly different, yet in a practical sense, the incentives for collaboration remain strong. Even at the regional level in non-devolved England there are significant overlaps between domestic policy responsibilities and the EU policy remit; the environmental, social, and economic challenges that substate governments face are often global in scope and require collaborative solutions involving governments, businesses and organisations around the world. The success of policymaking therefore depends on the ability to create and maintain positive relations with individuals, governments, business associations, community groups and academic institutions abroad.[2] For the Scots, the incentive to remain fully plugged into EU policy circles is sustained further by the Continuity Act (2021), which pins Scottish legislation to future EU regulations, thus allowing Scotland to remain aligned with EU rules in key areas of devolved competence such as agriculture, fisheries and the environment.

We can look to the example of Norway for how a ‘third country’ partner engages with the EU’s policy space. All of Norway’s regional players are active with an independent representation in and around the EU institutions, connecting with the EU institutions and other partners on issues relevant to policy delivery and to the wider cooperation set out in Norway’s numerous agreements with the EU. The Canadian provinces, to take a further example, showcase cultural links between themselves and Europe via a Brussels presence, and engage in policy dialogue with interest associations in the city, most recently for instance on the issue of social innovation in housing policy.

Towards a new British model of ‘paradiplomacy’? A more flexible and inclusive European policy

As the UK transitions to become a ‘third country’ in its relations with the EU, there remain huge unaddressed questions about how to enhance and strengthen links between all parts of the UK and our nearest neighbours. Since Brexit, there is more need than ever to have a multiplicity of British voices making their voices heard in that system, and looking for ways to exploit the opportunities presented by the EU and deliver real results for people and for businesses back here in the UK is hugely important. There are powerful arguments to support the development of a much more inclusive approach to Britain’s future European policy, one that embraces the multiplicity of perspectives around the UK and harnesses the potential to build positive relationships with our EU partners going forward.

This broader notion of developing a much more multi-level approach to international relations within the UK is regarded in some sectors as something of a ‘parallel’ or ‘paradiplomacy’ on international engagement. In a sense, this is about allowing substate interests from across all of Britain’s jurisdictions to flesh out in a practical sense the broad direction of foreign policy as it is set, offering the detail and the nuance that is often missing from the overarching agreements.

As the UK Parliament also begins its investigation into the British presence in the EU since Brexit, it is worth emphasising that the UK’s constitutional asymmetry should not act as a barrier to meaningful engagement between all parts of the UK and the EU.[3] Indeed, a more flexible approach to multi-level international relations offers the potential to foster the ties that bind us as a multi-national polity in the UK. Cooperation on shared agendas with our EU partners, bolstered by a more effective domestic intergovernmental framework for consensus building, such as is now promised within the new Interministerial Standing Committee system, could allow for the development of a more collaborative approach to European affairs. One that would work to harness the rich breadth of expertise across the UK on issues of European significance.[4] Such an approach, based on mutual respect for respective competences, emphasises cooperation and coordination reduces the incentives for conflictual posturing on European politics. Rather, it focuses squarely on delivering impactful returns to policy agendas here in the UK.

Carolyn is Senior Lecturer in Politics and co-directs the Aston Centre for Europe (@Aston_ACE), an inter-disciplinary hub for policy-relevant research and knowledge transfer on Europe at Aston. She is a project lead in a Europe-wide paradiplomacy network paradiplomacy.ideasforeurope.eu.

Image by Rob984 under (CC).

[1] Aston Centre for Europe and FPC event, Making their voices heard: Relations between the UK’s nations and regions and the EU post-Brexit, FPC, March 2022, https://fpc.org.uk/events/making-their-voices-heard-relations-between-the-uks-nations-and-regions-and-the-eu-post-brexit/

[2] Rodrigo Tavares (2016) ‘Paradiplomacy. Cities and states as global players’, Oxford: OUP

[3] UK Parliament EU Scrutiny Committee, The UK’s EU representation: what has changed and how is it working?, UK Parliament, 2022, https://committees.parliament.uk/work/6633/the-uks-eu-representation-what-has-changed-and-how-is-it-working/

[4] Professor Daniel Wincott, UK intergovernmental relations (IGR): machinery and culture changes, UK in a Changing Europe, January 2022, https://ukandeu.ac.uk/machinery-and-culture-of-uk-igr/

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Brexit

International Relations and Geopolitics

Regions

Europe

United Kingdom

Could China be a partner for the West in managing the Ukraine crisis?

Article by Anastasiya Bayok and Stefan Wolff

March 23, 2022

Could China be a partner for the West in managing the Ukraine crisis?

Talks between China and the US in Rome on 14 March 2022 ended inconclusively, dashing any tentative hopes for enlisting China in western efforts to end the war in Ukraine for now.[1] During these discussions, as well as in an interview the Chinese Ambassador to the United States gave to CBS the following Sunday, Beijing’s position against war and in favour of escalation was reiterated, as well as its long-standing stance “that national sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, including Ukraine, should be respected and protected.”[2]

Add to this that despite a recently announced no-limits partnership, the future direction of Russia-China relations has become more ambiguous as the consequences of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine become clearer.[3] As Ukraine has not only welcomed but also openly called for China to use its influence to stop the war, a potential opportunity for closer cooperation between the West and China should not be dismissed out of hand.[4]

Reform or disruption of the existing order?

Over the past several decades, Russia and China have gradually developed their bilateral relations and become strategic partners, united in their opposition to a US-dominated world order. China’s opposition to the current order is not fundamental, provided it has full access to, and can move freely within, it. China seeks integration into the system both to protect its sovereignty and economic interests and to reshape it gradually according to its own preferences. This does not exclude future domination of the system by China, but it does not make that outcome a foregone conclusion either.

Russia, by contrast, has been fundamentally opposed to the current world order in which its place, role and influence have significantly diminished over the past three decades.[5] Russia aspires to be a rule-setting great power, uninhibited by constraints that curtail its ‘rights’ to invade sovereign states and annex as many territories as it deems necessary for its own security. Russia occupied and subsequently recognised Georgia’s Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions in 2008 and parts of Ukraine’s Donbas in 2014 and 2022, invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, and is now fighting a war of aggression against Ukraine.

Over the years, China has expressed sympathy for Russia’s dissatisfaction especially with the post-Cold War European security order, often blaming a Cold War mentality for the escalating tensions with the west, Russia’s approach to dealing with this fundamentally contradicts China´s mantra about the importance of the principles of territorial integrity, sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of other states.[6] China may not always be as sincere about this as it would like the rest of the world to believe, but it has never recognised the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia or the Russian annexation of Crimea.

No less important, in this context, are China´s aspirations for stability in the international system which is critical to its own economic development. Disruption of trade routes, threats to its own overseas investments, a hike in global oil and gas prices are all detrimental to China. The effectiveness of western sanctions against Russia and the potential of secondary sanctions against China if Xi were to support Putin also should give China pause for thought how it can best achieve security and stability in Europe where it has both long-term economic interests and solid investments across the continent.[7]

China-Russia relations in troubled waters

The reality behind the almost perfect bilateral relationship between Moscow and Beijing that the two countries have projected to the outside world is deeply complex. Mutual distrust, power asymmetry, and clear antagonism in some areas pose significant challenges to what is often more an alliance of convenience than a truly strategic partnership among equals.

Twice now has Russia disrespected China’s hosting of the Olympics. The 2008 war with Georgia started during the Olympic summer games in Beijing and the war in Ukraine began just as the 2022 Olympic Winter Games had finished and the Paralympic Games were about to start. Such high-profile international events are hugely important for how China projects its own image at home and abroad. That its ‘closest strategic partner’ chose to disregard this cannot have been lost on China.

Internationally, China’s position is also becoming more tenuous as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues and it humanitarian, and not just economic and political, consequences become apparent. Being associated with Russia’s aggression, if only by inaction, is likely to erode China’s self-image of a defender of international norms and damage its bilateral relationships with many other countries. Chinese diplomatic and political tradition of not condemning Russia publicly has long been at the core of Sino-Russian bilateral relations, but it soon risks that China will find itself only in the company of a select few countries that still openly side with Russia at the UN, like Syria, North Korea, Eritrea, and Belarus.[8]

A sign of things to come?

While China has so far abstained from votes in the UN General Assembly and the Security Council, which is more in line with its traditionally rather reserved foreign policy that was also on display in 2008 and 2014, there are some indications of a rethink in Beijing. Just days before the war, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, appealed to all sides involved in the conflict at the Munich Security Conference to use diplomatic and peaceful ways to resolve it, emphasising that Ukrainian “sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity should be respected and safeguarded” and Russian concerns should be taken into consideration.[9] One day after the start of the war, Wang Yi, during his phone conversations with Liz Truss, the UK Foreign Secretary, Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, and Emmanuel Bonne, an Advisor to French President Emmanuel Macron, emphasised that what was going on in Ukraine is something China did not want to see.[10]

President Xi himself reiterated China’s stance on “maximum restraint” in Ukraine during his virtual meeting with Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.[11] The three leaders agreed to work together in facilitating the dialogue between Russia and Ukraine and to combine their efforts to deescalate the crisis.[12] While there have been examples of cooperation between China and the EU on economic connectivity issues in the Western Balkans and in Central Asia, this is the first attempt of involving China in European security issues.[13] This also highlights options for finding cooperation arrangements between China and the West on particular issues like the Ukraine war outside the fraught relations between China and the US.

Shipments of Chinese smartphones from brands like Xiaomi, Huawei, and Oppo, to Russia has been cut in half.[14] China has refused to supply aircraft parts to Russia after western sanctions hit.[15] Even if those are reactions purely motivated by economic factors, it nevertheless, demonstrates the limits of China’s support to Russia by all means. This is even more obvious when it comes to the flat-out denial by China that it had received any Russian requests for military aid.[16]

A final sign of a potential shift in Beijing’s thinking is the way in which Chinese state media covers the war in Ukraine. While there is still clear evidence of censorship and a favouring of (pro-) Russian positions, in marked contrast to Moscow’s approach, Chinese State TV, for example, presents both Russian and Ukrainian positions on the war, provides analysis of foreign media (including French, German, Iranian, and Japanese) on the war in Ukraine, and presents actual footage of the humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding in Ukraine.[17] Similarly, video messages of Zelenskiy receive widespread coverage in Chinese mass media.[18]

It is important to remember in all of this that China has yet to openly condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and to take any steps in public to end the war other than calling for mutual restraint. This may or may not happen in the near future or ever, but there are subtle signs of a Chinese shift away from an unconditional partnership with Russia. Nonetheless, China appears to keep hedging its bets. This in itself is a problem because it prolongs the war and worsens the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and in neighbouring countries. China’s position could be a reflection of its fundamental commitment to non-interference (which would be the optimistic reading) or because it sees benefits for itself in a continuation of the war, with Russia and the West weakening each other at manageable costs for Beijing while also creating significant opportunities for China.

The latter, which appears to be the more widely shared view in Western capitals, would mean that China cannot really be a partner for the West in ending the war in Ukraine unless Chinese cost-benefit calculations can be changed. If this is achieved through coercive measures, such as secondary sanctions, it would at best be a one-off ‘partnership’ and probably be quite limited in scope and time. If it were achieved through cooperative measures, such as less overt antagonism, less combative public rhetoric, and focusing also on other areas where relations could be improved, it might have a longer-term positive impact on international peace and security. Finding such common ground will be difficult, but given the gravity of the situation, it is still worth exploring.

For the sake of Ukraine, the opportunity, however slim, to cooperate with China on stopping Russia’s aggression should not be discarded out of hand. The fact that Washington and Beijing both “underscored the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the United States and China” at their meeting in Rome indicates that this opportunity is still there to be used.[19]

Anastasiya Bayok, Centre for OSCE Research, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg

Stefan Wolff, Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security, University of Birmingham

Image by U.S. Army Photo/Sgt. Mikki L. Sprenkle

[1] DW, US and China hold high level talks about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, March 2022, https://www.dw.com/en/us-and-china-hold-high-level-talks-about-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/a-61122006

[2] Financial Times, China ‘will do everything’ to de-escalate war, ambassador says, March 2022, https://www.ft.com/content/4fe601c9-25e2-48e5-a668-d4fcb34d3afc?emailId=623955e6cbe6fa0023b5be6c&segmentId=22011ee7-896a-8c4c-22a0-7603348b7f22#post-c6c1cc39-c10c-4746-9001-595cf2345e2d

[3] Tony Munroe, Andrew Osborn and Humeyra Pamuk, China, Russia partner up against West at Olympics summit, Reuters, February 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-china-tell-nato-stop-expansion-moscow-backs-beijing-taiwan-2022-02-04/; Gideon Rachman, Xi Jinping faces a fateful decision on Ukraine, Financial Times, March 2022, https://www.ft.com/content/75701f79-2edd-4a46-98e7-620473ffabce

[4] Reed Standish and RFE/RL, Will China force Russia to stop the war in Ukraine?, ru.krymr.com, March 2022, https://ru.krymr.com/a/voyna-rossii-protiv-ukrainy-kitay-peregovory/31744215.html; Stefan Wolff, Ukraine invasion: what the west needs to do now – expert view, The Conversation, February 2022, https://theconversation.com/ukraine-invasion-what-the-west-needs-to-do-now-expert-view-177860

[5] Stefan Wolff & Tetyana Malyarenko, The Russian Threat Against Ukraine: A Long History and an Uncertain Future, Wilson Center, January 2022, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/russian-threat-against-ukraine-long-history-and-uncertain-future

[6] Rodion Why China thinks the West is to blame for Russia’s war in Ukraine, Ebbighausen, DW, March 2022, https://www.dw.com/en/why-china-thinks-the-west-is-to-blame-for-russias-war-in-ukraine/a-61119517

[7] Pavel Polityuk, Natalia Zinets and Omer Berberoglu, Biden plans first Europe visit since Ukraine invasion as refugees surpass 3 million, Reuters, March 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-warns-china-against-helping-russia-sanctions-mount-2022-03-15/

[8] Julian Borger, UN votes to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and calls for withdrawal, The Guardian, March 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/02/united-nations-russia-ukraine-vote

[9] GT staff reporters, Chinese FM Wang Yi calls for diplomatic solution, not hyping war over Ukraine issue, Global Times, Febuary 2022, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202202/1252641.shtml

[10] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, Wang Yi Expounds China’s Five-Point Position on the Current Ukraine Issue, February 2022, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/wjbz_663308/activities_663312/202202/t20220226_10645855.html

[11] Reuters, China’s for ‘maximum restraint’ in Ukraine, March 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-xi-calls-maximum-restraint-ukraine-2022-03-08/

[12] Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, Chancellor Scholz talks to French President Macron and China’s President Xi Jinping, March 2022, https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/gespraech-von-bundeskanzler-scholz-mit-frankreichs-staatspraesident-macron-und-chinas-staatspraesident-xi-jinping-2011676

[13] Stefan Wolff, China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Implications for the OSCe, OSCE Network, March 2021, https://osce-network.net/fileadmin/user_upload/publications/China-BRI-Report-2021-fin.pdf; Anastasiya Bayok, OSCE Yearbook 2019, page 273-286, Nomos eLibrary, 2020, https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783748906421-273/challenges-and-threat-perceptions-regarding-central-asia-in-china-and-the-eu?page=1

[14] Su Yu and Edward White, Chinese smartphone shipments to Russia plunge as rouble collapses, Financial Times, March 2022, https://www.ft.com/content/8f3e0214-94b1-4d73-b34f-31c189437578

[15] Reuters, Russia says China refuses to supply aircraft parts after sanctions, March 2022, https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-says-china-refuses-supply-aircraft-parts-after-sanctions-2022-03-10/

[16] Simone McCarthy and Jeremy Herb, Top US and Chinese officials hold high-stakes meeting in Rome, CNN, March 2022, https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/14/china/china-us-meeting-rome-ukraine-intl-hnk/index.html#:~:text=China%20has%20denied%20it%20was%20asked%20by%20Russia,%22defining%20moment%22%20for%20China%20and%20the%2021st%20century; Via AP news wire, US official: Russia seeking military aid from China, Independent, March 2022, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/china-ukraine-russia-jake-sullivan-vladimir-putin-b2035070.html

[17] Kai Wang, Ukraine: How China is censoring online discussion of the war, BBC Reality Check, March 2022, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60684682; CCTV-4 Chinese International Channel, Media Focus Ukraine is in a crisis of war, CCTV Network, February 2022, http://tv.cctv.cn/2022/02/27/VIDE605MfvRijmAHJRrv7nEb220227.shtml; CCTV-13 News Channel, Ukraine is concerned about the situation in Ukraine, Odessa curfew, government will issue “war bonds“, CCTV Network, February 2022, https://tv.cctv.com/2022/02/26/VIDEOJOX0Gtg6QcQeLAtfCkR220226.shtml

[18] CCTV-4 Chinese International Channel, Zelensky released a video: The war should end and sit down and negotiate, CCTV Network, March 2022, https://tv.cctv.com/2022/03/09/VIDErfkoSJLr2ujDbOmvMuUz220309.shtml

[19] The White House, Readout of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s Meeting with Politburo Member Yang Jiechi, March 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/14/readout-of-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivans-meeting-with-politburo-member-yang-jiechi-2/

Topics

Conflict Resolution and Security

International Relations and Geopolitics

Ukraine Conflict

Regions

Asia

China

Former Soviet Union

Ukraine

United States and Canada

United States

Amid Ukraine, keep watching Belarus. That might be Putin’s real sleight of hand

Article by Professor Rick Fawn

February 23, 2022

Amid Ukraine, keep watching Belarus. That might be Putin’s real sleight of hand

We are all rightly focused on massive Russian military build-ups around Ukraine. The most recent, and potentially most menacing, is in Belarus. Grabbing control of Belarus in the process makes sense as a Putin objective. Five reasons point that way, especially when our gaze is locked on events south of this post-Soviet dictatorship.

First, Putin craves regional order and stability. That means having leaders who reliably maintain domestic autocratic order, and comply with building ever-closer working relations with Russia, including Putin’s pet regional project of the Eurasian Economic Union. We know Putin’s fear and revulsion at the (peaceful) removal of previous friendly regimes in other post-Soviet regimes.

The biggest example of that came in 2014 when Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych failed to keep order and fled to Russia, where the Putin regime gives refuge to other flunked post-Soviet leaders.

Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko, clinging to power for almost 30 years, failed that essential Putin test following falsified elections in 2020. Despite violent repression, mass protests continue. Worse, an effective government-in-exile under Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya functions with Western support. Belarus is an embarrassment and a political risk for Putin. That is intolerable already. The fears of Western political contagion that contributed to Russia’s current mobilisation against Ukraine applies to Belarus.

From the Kremlin’s perspective Lukashenko cannot be trusted to run his country. Worse, he could be ousted, with a credible, Western-focused elite ready to take over. Western institutions would embrace Belarus, the only country in Europe still not even a member of the Council of Europe. The Foreign Office’s disclosure in January of a Russian-planned coup in Ukraine, and a similar claim by the Ukrainian Government in November 2021, is a scenario that makes greater sense in Belarus.

Second, despite Lukashenko’s failures, Russian military and security penetration of Belarus is immense. Russian control, even annexation, was easy before, and is simpler with the new Russian presences. It is inconceivable that those Russian deployments and exercises come with no additional control over Belarusian military-security systems. Lukashenko’s inflammatory offer to host nuclear missile tests is belated and nightmarish pandering to his Russian handler. And the Russian forces in Belarus, initially scheduled to depart on 20 February after the live-fire exercises, remain.

Applicable to Belarus is US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s quip, in that case regarding Kazakhstan, that once present Russian troops tend not to leave. Moldova and Georgia had Russian ‘peacekeepers’ on parts of their territory that grew from Soviet-era basing, despite international efforts to curtail them. In Georgia’s case, after 2008, even more Russian personnel and hardware were moved in – with those new Russian deployments in South Ossetia being but a 45-minute drive to Georgia’s capital. While Russia sought to interject its ‘peacekeepers’ into Karabakh as part of its brokered ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1994, Moscow had to wait until 2020 – and then moved so swiftly that its forces deployed as the proverbial ceasefire ink was drying. Now Russian forces are set to stay for five years, and with provisions for extension.

Third, Putin may not win over Ukraine. No Western government has given him a shred of his demands, despite his moments of prestige gained from securing exclusive bilateral talks with the US. If current pressure on Ukraine delivers Putin no meaningful outcome, or even some face-saving measure, then Belarus could also perform as a consolation prize.

Fourth, direct control and even annexation of Belarus affords Russia important strategic advantage. Ukraine would be permanently pressured from its north, and within closest reach of Ukraine’s capital. A Russian-operated Belarus also closes the painful land gap between Russia’s Kaliningrad and the rest of Russia. Additionally, it gives Russian control over the tiny land bridge of the Suwalski Gap, between NATO’s eastern members of Poland and Lithuania; Russia would render those countries even more vulnerable to future threats.

The annexation of Belarus would also bring further political and economic destabilisation to these NATO and EU member states – ones whose political and economic reforms made them role models of transformation in the post-communist world. Better still, this would also be comeuppance for Latvia and Estonia, roughly 40 per cent of whose populations are Russian-speaking and whom Moscow claims were mistreated and that that flagrant abuse of rights was ignored by the double standards of NATO and the EU. Righting seeming historical injustice is important to Putin.

Fifth, as with Ukraine so with Belarus, the Kremlin can claim that it is regaining lost lands and peoples. Belarussians are “small Slavic brothers” in the same, dismissive way that Putin personally has designated Ukrainians. The phrase “two states one people” is used, even on banners in the current Belarusian-Russian joint exercises – but if so, why would one people need two states? The strategic gains of reintegrating Belarus would go hand-in-hand with saviour-like claims that Moscow is heroically reassembling historic brethren and providing ever-lasting protection from the frightful West.

At least the current, brazen Russian military build-up against Ukraine generated relatively consistent Western unity and armed responses. But Putin has masterfully wrongfooted the West, when also not dividing it. The Belarus opportunity would fit among the strategic magic tricks that the Kremlin has engineered in the post-Soviet space. Events in Crimea in 2014 at first seemed a distraction from the revolutionary events in Ukraine’s capital. Kyiv is now settled. Eight years on, Crimea, and Donbas too, remain core theatre.

The Russian leadership certainly feels aggrieved by the post-Cold War order. It wants vengeance and to gain compensatory strategic advantages. It may still be that diplomacy can work. On the Russian side, on 14 February Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that publicly to his President. A week later prospects increased for another US-Russian presidential meeting, subject by the US to no war having started. Within hours the Kremlin seemed to retreat from the idea, and Putin thereafter recognised the breakaway entities of Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin’s longer-term ambitions are unlikely to be satiated by small pieces of Ukraine.

But while we are all necessarily focused on Ukraine, other sinister and destabilising measures may be underway. Let’s hope none occurs with Belarus. European security has been upended enough.

At time of writing, Russian forces supposedly deployed in Belarus for temporary joint training remain in place, formally extended beyond their initial departure. The Kremlin’s logic, past behaviour, and its skills of distraction and of surprise are warnings enough to make the Belarusian scenario worryingly credible.

(A version of this article appeared in The Sunday Post on 20 February 2022.)

Rick Fawn is Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. Among his books are Managing Security Threats along the EU’s Eastern Flanks.

Image by Homoatrox under (CC).

Topics

Conflict Resolution and Security

International Relations and Geopolitics

Ukraine Conflict

Regions

Former Soviet Union

Belarus

Russia

Ukraine

Power-Sharing: Why is it still central in the efforts to end the wars in Syria and Yemen?

Article by Professor Simon Mabon and Professor Allison McCulloch

February 14, 2022

Power-Sharing: Why is it still central in the efforts to end the wars in Syria and Yemen?

As the war in Syria heads into its second decade, the search for a comprehensive peace settlement remains elusive. This is not for want of trying. The United Nations, backed by the United States and the European Union, have convened multiple rounds of peace talks, as have the Russians. All – so far – have come up empty handed. A key proposal floated at different stages of the process has been some kind of power-sharing, either between the country’s diverse range of ethno-sectarian communities – Alawites, Kurds, and Sunnis among them – or between the opposition and the Assad regime. In Yemen, too, power-sharing remains a central plank of attempts to build peace and end the country’s protracted war. According to the former UN special envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, “power-sharing is the only way to end the war in Yemen.”[1]

Yet, a glance around the neighbourhood might suggest that power-sharing is not the quick fix it is often presumed to be. In Lebanon, where a power-sharing settlement helped to end that country’s civil war in 1989, citizens collectively took to the streets in record numbers in 2019, demanding greater accountability from a political elite notorious for its clientelistic and often corrupt style of political decision-making.[2] From an unprecedented financial crisis – characterised by hyperinflation, an exodus of young people, gas and electrical shortages, and the loss or dramatic devaluation of life savings – to the devasting Beirut Blasts, which killed more than 200 people in August 2020 and the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on the country’s failing infrastructure, Lebanon seems a country on the brink.

Iraq is faring no better.[3] The agreement to share power amongst Sunnis, Shi’as, and Kurds, as per the terms of the 2005 constitution, remains contentious and the political situation unstable. Starting in 2019, widespread insecurity and unemployment, the failure to deliver basic public services, and ongoing endemic corruption gave rise to street protests and other forms of civil disobedience. The lack of government responsiveness in the face of such protests elicted calls from protesters to boycott the elections held in October 2021. In both Lebanon and Iraq, the political situation is more tenuous than at any other point in their post-war histories.

With power-sharing performing so poorly in the neighbourhood, why is it still a central plank in efforts to end the wars in Syria and Yemen?

In the years following the end of the Cold War, power-sharing came to be a go-to response of international actors, who positioned it as a mechanism by which to end deadly ethnic or sectarian violence. During this time, power-sharing processes have been implemented not just in Lebanon and Iraq, but in a diverse range of places around the world. Comprehensive power-sharing settlements helped to end protract conflicts in Northern Ireland, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Burundi. Temporary power-sharing pacts helped to mediated between political parties in the wake of contested elections, quelling outbursts of election-related violence, in Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Afghanistan. It remains a core aspect of the negotiations to reunify Cyprus.

The prospect that power-sharing can bring about an immediate end to violence makes it a particularly desirable proposal in several hotspots around the world, not least of all Syria and Yemen. As the toll of human suffering continues to mount in these countries, power-sharing mechanisms are touted as the means by which to end their respective wars. Drawing lessons from Lebanon and Iraq, we argue that power-sharing continues to have a critical role to play in ending war and building peace in Syria and Yemen, but a number of challenges must first be addressed in order to facilitate a lasting peace.

Power-sharing in operation

Power-sharing brings actors previously involved in conflict into coalition government with one another, often in direct proportion to the share of the population they purport to represent. Those same actors are given veto powers – thereby allowing them to thwart any proposed legislation that may harm their vital interests – and, often, a significant degree of autonomy, either territorially where they are tasked with heading up regional governments or by having sole decision-making powers in their own cultural affairs, including language, education, and religion. Such a system is designed to give voice to minority groups who may have previously lacked access to the political system and ensures that political power is not the sole domain of a single ethnic community. It is predicated on the ability to end communal violence by assuaging any grievances held by the different communities.

In Lebanon, armed groups involved in the fighting transformed into political parties. Many of those same militia leaders – or their kin – continue to head up the political system to this day, more than 30 years since the end of the war. In Iraq, ethno-sectarian divisions prompted international state builders to implement a system that distributed power across the three major communal groups (Arab Shi’a, Arab Sunni and Kurd). The nature of communal representation made have changed, but many of the underlying grievances did not.

While power-sharing had initial successes in granting political access to the different communal groups and encouraging groups to settle disputes through institutional channels rather than on the battlefield, the system of power-sharing in operation in Lebanon and Iraq have, of late, been met with vociferous opposition, most notably in the form sustained protest movements in both countries since 2019.[4] As it turns out, a system of government which brings together groups who remain distrustful of one another and requires their consensus to move policies forward, has a hard time getting things done. Public service provisions languish – as the 2015 You Stink protests in Lebanon over the government’s failure to adequately handle waste management contracts vividly detail – and corruption appears rife. A carve-up of power, rather than its sharing.

A central issue here pertains to ideas of peace. For Johan Galtung, the founding father of the discipline of Peace Studies, peace should not merely be viewed as the absence of war, a condition best thought of as ‘negative peace’ but rather the absence of all structural impediments which impact on an individual’s ability to achieve their full potential, what Galtung referred to as ‘positive peace’.[5] Whilst philosophically challenging, Galtung’s idea has merit, particularly in the context of power-sharing.

The systems in Lebanon and Iraq may have facilitated negative peace but they have struggled with creating the conditions of positive peace in which people can thrive and reach their ‘potential’. Herein lies the crux of the problem with power-sharing: the inability to secure positive peace jeopardises the gains of negative peace, risking political instability and even a lapse back into violence. If power-sharing is to stand a chance of not only ending war but also building (positive) peace in Yemen and Syria, there are three broad lessons constitutional designers may wish to learn from the experiences of Lebanon and Iraq.

Issue 1: Process design and power-sharing adoption

As experiences in Syria and Yemen suggest, power-sharing arrangements can be hard to adopt. They require a particular set of conditions for parties to even begin to entertain dialogue over power-sharing. Ethnic or sectarian majorities neither want – nor often need – to share power and any party gaining on the battlefield will be reluctant to make any kind of deal that might threaten those advances. Typically, then, the parties to a conflict must be roughly equal in terms of their relative power – neither able to govern on their own nor vanquish their enemies on the battlefield – otherwise there is little incentive for those in positions of strength to concede power. That is, the best hope for power-sharing comes at the moment at which parties reach a mutually hurting stalemate.[6] Assuming such conditions are met, the first set of issues emerges over the adoption, implementation, and perhaps, imposition of a deal. How that deal is struck will tell us something about its life chances, with decisions on process design having lasting repercussions for political, social and economic life through privileging particular groups over others.

War, of course, is messy. Who is invited to the peace table, when to hold talks, what issues to put on the agenda (and in what order), as well as any linkages between issues all require careful consideration and are not always adequately captured within power-sharing processes. This risks leaving key actors locked out of the negotiation room and underlying grievances kept outside of the system. A key question emerges here as to whether power-sharing is seen as a mechanism solely for ending war (getting combatants to lay down their arms) or as building peace (establishing a government system for all of society). While the first clause is essential for the enactment of the second, the second does not necessarily flow from the first.

In Lebanon, the Ta’if Accords brought about an end to the country’s 15 year civil war but enshrined erstwhile warlords – the zu’ama – in positions of power within the political fabric of the state. This provided them with both personal and political justifications for reproducing the sectarian status quo while weaving the logic of power-sharing into ‘every nook and cranny’ of state power.[7] In contrast, some political figures who refused to take up arms during the civil war were excluded from the political settlement due to their lack of involvement in the war. When protestors in the streets of Beirut and Tripoli chant “all of them means all of them” it is this sectarian status quo, first entrenched in the negotiations which led to the Ta’if Accords, which they hope to expunge.[8]

The constitution-making process in Iraq highlights the importance of getting the timing right.[9] The Sunni boycott of the 2005 elections meant that they were then severely underrepresented – holding initially only two of 55 seats – in the Temporary National Assembly tasked with writing a democratic constitution. The rushed timeline of that process – from elections in June to a referendum on a draft constitution in October – did little to assuage Sunni concerns. Starting out on such unstable footing, where one of the key constituencies meant to share power feels disconnected from the system, in turn sets the new agreement on a difficult course to functional politics.

For those advocating power-sharing as a a solution to conflict in Syria and Yemen, the lessons are stark: power-sharing must be designed in the most inclusive possible way, as a means of ending conflict but also addressing the structural factors preventing the emergence of positive peace.

Issue 2: Functionality/Evolution

A second major issue concerns the ability of power-sharing systems to adapt to changing political contexts. The establishment of short-term electoral pacts – while commendable in bringing an end to violent conflict – needs to be supported with institutional mechanisms to ensure oversight, accountability and a degree of flexibility to address future problems. Ending war is not the same thing as building peace.

Power-sharing agreements are negotiated in the fraught context of war, where distrust between the parties runs deep. In such conditions, parties will often seek strong guarantees of their share of power rather than leaving it to chance in democratic elections. Yet locking in a group’s share of power can complicate the implementation process.

Different models of power-sharing reflect the complexities and contingencies of identity and political life.[10] Corporate models of power-sharing suggest that identities are fixed, internally homogenous and externally bounded, guaranteeing the rights of communal groups. The risk of such models is that they may entrench the temporary power configuration present at the moment of power-sharing adoption and that they are resistant to fluctuations in demographic trends and evolving political party preferences over time. In contrast, liberal power-sharing rewards the emergence of salient political identities, both along ethnic and trans-communal lines, in free and fair elections. The liberal model is often heralded as helping society move beyond fixed communal cleavages and providing opportunities to ameliorate divisions.

In Lebanon, where sectarian quotas in the legislature and the reservation of the top posts of president, prime minister, and speaker of the house for Maronites, Sunnis, and Shi’as, respectively, the legitimacy and influence of elites has begun to wane, prompting calls for a shift towards a more ‘issue based’ approach to political engagement. Yet the rigidity of the power-sharing system has prevented this from occurring, mounting citizen frustrations with the state of politics. Despite the economic collapse coming after years of financial mismanagement and the Beirut Blast, elites maintain their position of influence beyond formal politics, (re)turning to service provision as a means of retaining support from their communities. Central to this, of course, is rampant corruption.

Similarly, in Iraq, the ethno-sectarian power-sharing arrangement – described as a “light” form of consociationalism focussed on temporary measures – resulted in the dominance of Shi’a, Kurdish and Sunni elites, mapped onto a federal and decentralised state.[11] However the years that followed the establishment of Iraq’s power-sharing model were beset by state weakness, stemming institutionalised corruption, ongoing debate over the nature of decentralisation, and political inertia, prompting widespread protests in which hundreds have been killed. Frustration at the political system prompted a call to boycott the 2021 elections as a means of denying ruling elites of political legitimacy.[12]

What this means for Syria and Yemen is any negotiated power-sharing settlement needs to account both for the conditions in which it is agreed while simultaneously keeping an eye on the future. Introducing institutional reforms in the face of changing demographic, political and social conditions is necessary not only for keeping the deal alive between the original actors but also to ensure that those groups who may not be the main or original beneficiaries of power-sharing can also find a way into democratic politics.

Issue 3: The complicated role of international actors

Since the end of the Cold War, international actors have come to play a prominent role in mediating and implementing power-sharing agreements in a variety of divided settings, including Bosnia & Herzegovina, Burundi, Sudan, and Northern Ireland. In the contemporary Middle East, external actors, including neighbouring states, have also significantly shaped the course of domestic politics. Here, two issues emerge: penetration and oversight.

Power-sharing works best when local political actors have willingly agreed to work together for the good of the country. Ensuring that these local actors retain political autonomy is of paramount importance. Yet the penetration of political contexts by members of the international community seeking to propagate power-sharing agreements risks undermining and eroding the local credibility of the agreement. An agreement imposed on local actors by external actors is unlikely to lead to stable and functional politics. External actors can help to support power-sharing by exerting leverage, facilitating or mediating resolutions to power-sharing stalemates, convening or chairing inter-party talks, providing technical expertise, conducting shuttle diplomacy or even helping to draft the text of agreements.[13] Taking more assertive or coercive measures, superseding local decision-making in the process, may provide a quick fix but sets up long-term perverse consequences, sending a message to local actors that they need only wait out tough decisions until such time as the international community will make for them instead. This deprives power-sharing of one of its main benefits: the ability to induce inter-elite cooperation.

A secondary form of penetration stems from transnational relationships between local actors and regional (or international) states who previously offered material or ideational support.[14] The interplay of local, national and international issues adds an additional set of challenges for peace builders to address. In such conditions, local actors can be empowered by international actors when their interests coalesce, as is the case in Lebanon and Iraq, where Iranian support has given Hizballah and PMUs disproportional influence across national politics, much to the chagrin of others.

Oversight is key to these issues. Yet implementing a form of oversight that leaves political agreements accountable to the electorate rather than donors is a challenge in its own right. This issue is especially evident in Syria, where Bashar Assad was recently re-elected as President with 95% of the vote, prompting serious questions about electoral integrity and accountability.[15] With ongoing support from Russia and Iran, there is little opportunity of the President ceding any kind of accountability to the people.

In contrast, the absence of a centralised state in Yemen complicates peacebuilding efforts. Amid deep division and widespread fragmentation, there exist only pockets of peace building, which may be isolated from one another. While civil society actors continue to undertake important peace building work across these domains, the absence of an overarching state makes broader collaboration between these actors, as well as the distribution of international humanitarian assistance, increasingly difficult.

Moving forward, what can be done?

The failure to bring an end to conflict in Syria and Yemen comes at a devastating price. In Syria, some estimates place the death toll at over 600,000 with 13.3 million people displaced. A power-sharing agreement will do little to assuage anger at those who lost loved ones or whose lives were decimated by the war. Similarly, it will do little to provide the necessary support for those displaced from their homes. In Yemen, the death toll is over 230,000 with over eight million people in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Power-sharing alone does little to address basis needs or human security. But what it does do is provide the launchpad from which human security can begin to be established and democratic politics can begin to take root.

As a consequence of shared histories, identities, ideologies, and religions, the actions of regional actors resonate deeply in the day to day politics of the state across the Middle East. In divided societies, this leaves the state open to the interference of others, as has been seen in Lebanon and Iraq and as continues to play out in Yemen and Syria. The residue of such penetration can exacerbate existing divisions, prolonging conflict or it can serve to create new grievances, threatening the gains of peace offered by power-sharing.

Ultimately, power-sharing agreements must be holistic in their approach. This necessitates avoiding ‘one size fits all’ templates and instead acknowledging the complexity and contingencies of local politics. Similarly, quick fixes such as the Stockholm Agreement must also be avoided, in favour of more considered – or creative – strategies. This may, in the short term, require an acknowledgement that a state-wide power-sharing agreement may not be viable and, instead, necessitate creating localised areas of peace and stability supported by humanitarian aid. Alternatively, this may involve supporting – or creating – localised forms of governance which may (not) include a state-wide power-sharing dimension. From these starting points, a carefully designed process of power-sharing on a larger scale can be crafted, one that not only helps to end war but also to build (positive) peace for all of society.

[1][1] Jamal Benomar, Power-sharing is the only way to end the war in Yemen – if the US supports it, The Guardian, March 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/26/power-sharing-war-yemen-us-houthi-peace

[2] Ibrahim Halawi and Bassel F. Salloukh (2020) ‘ Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will after the 17 October Protests in Lebanon’, Middle East Law and Governance, 12:3, 322-334, doi: 10.1163/18763375-12030005

[3] Toby Dodge (2021) ‘The Failure of Peacebuilding in Iraq: The Role of Consociationalism and Political Settlements’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 15:4, 459-475, doi: 10.1080/17502977.2020.1850036

[4] Bassel F. Salloukh, Here’s what the protests in Lebanon and Iraq are really about, The Washington Post, October 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/19/heres-what-protests-lebanon-iraq-are-really-about/

[5] Johan Galtung (1969) ‘Violence, Peace and Peace Research’, Journal of Peace Research, doi: 10.1177/002234336900600301

[6] Eric Brahm, Hurting Stalemate Stage, Beyond Intractability, September 2003, https://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/stalemate

[7] Bassel F. Salloukh (2020) ‘Consociational Power-Sharing in the Arab World: A Critical Stocktaking’, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, Volume 20, Issue 2, p. 100-108, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sena.12325

[8] Daniel Hilton, ‘All of them means all of mean’: Who are Lebanon’s political elite?, Middle East Eye, October 2019, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/all-them-means-all-them-who-are-lebanons-political-elite

[9] Joanne McEvoy and Eduardo Wassim Aboultaif (2020) ‘Power-Sharing Challenges: From Weak Adoptability to Dysfunction in Iraq’, Ethnopolitics (formerly Global Review of Ethnopolitics), doi: 10.1080/17449057.2020.1739363

[10] Allison McCulloch (2014) ‘Consociational settlements in deeply divided societies: the liberal-corporate distinction’, Democraization, Volumer 21, Issue 3, doi: 10.1080/13510347.2012.748039

[11] Matthijs Bogaards (2019) ‘Iraq’s Constitution of 2005: The Case Against Consociationalism ‘Light’’, Ethnopolitics (formerly Global Review of Ethnopolitics), Volume 20, Issue 2, doi: 10.1080/17449057.2019.1654200

[12] Jassim Al-Helfi, The Case for Boycotting the Iraqi Elections, LSE, June 2021, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2021/06/15/the-case-for-boycotting-the-iraqi-elections/

[13] Allison McCulloch and Joanne McEvoy (2018) ‘‘Bumps in the Road Ahead’: How External Actors Defuse Power-Sharing Crises’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Volume 13, Issue 2, doi: 10.1080/17502977.2018.1526994

[14] Simon Mabon (2019) ‘Sectarian Games: Sovereign Power, War Machines and Regional Order in the Middle East’, Middle East Law and Governance, 11: 3, 283-318, doi: 10.1163/18763375-01201001

[15] Ali Aljasem, Syrian election: Bashar al-Assad wins with 95% of votes as world watches in disbelief, The Conversation, May 2021, https://theconversation.com/syrian-election-bashar-al-assad-wins-with-95-of-votes-as-world-watches-in-disbelief-161704

Topics

Conflict Resolution and Security

Democracy and Elections

Human Rights

International Relations and Geopolitics

Regions

Middle East and North Africa

Gulf States

Iraq

Syria

Does Russia want a new Berlin Wall?

Article by Dr Beata Martin-Rozumilowicz

January 29, 2022

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 it was a great victory for democracy. Experts purported the end of history and many anticipated that a linear progress away from authoritarianism and dictatorship was all but assured.

Yet, 30 some years on, is a new Berlin Wall just outside of Kyiv what Russia is again pushing for? The current circumstances seem to indicate that the answer to this question is yes.

While the Yeltsin years gave some hope of an incipient democracy in Russia, this soon started to dissipate in the early 2000s with Putin’s victory. As an election observer in Russian in 2003, I saw first-hand how fraudulent votes were being cast by election commissions to assure Putin’s continued success. Yet the West did little to call him on these early infractions.

Later, as countries (including Ukraine) fell to ‘so-called’ colour revolutions, Moscow’s response became more belligerent and recalcitrant. Some claimed that antagonistic Western forces were to blame, all the while touting self-determination and national sovereignty.

The initial successes in Poland and other Eastern European countries in the early 2000s, however, gave people in places like Ukraine a real hope for a different way of life. This was so much a threat that it caused Moscow to bankroll a Party of Regions and a Viktor Yanukovych to tow the Moscow line and to prevent democracy from taking root in the country.

Yet Ukrainians again decided in 2014 that they wanted representative democracy and a road to Europe. This Revolution of Dignity underscored that Russia had again miscalculated its strategy towards Ukraine (as they had in 2004 during the previous Orange Revolution).

While Russia’s geopolitical strategy in the region is not only about Ukraine, it does continue to hold a Cold War, bipolar view of the world where the focus is about Russia playing a global role again, sitting at the same table with the US, and calling the shots. With recent developments in Kazakhstan and Belarus, these former Soviet republics have become closer to the Russian orbit, but Ukraine continues to keep slipping away.

Russia has lost the hearts and minds of Ukrainians (as well as of Belarusians, and many Kazakhs, Armenians, and others) and is seen as the protector of authoritarian regimes, using its political and military means to stymie genuine sovereignty, democratisation, and further development. While this may currently be enough in Belarus or Kazakhstan, it has not worked in Ukraine.

With Yanukovych having fled to Russia, Moscow shifted focus and resources to new technologies, influence campaigns and hybrid warfare. The taking of Crimea and the false-flag operations in Donbas, and the attempt to attack the Ukrainian electoral system in 2014 to produce a Moscow-favourable Ukrainian president (in the shape of unlikely and unknown Dmytro Yarosh) was a prelude to documented Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections.

With the somewhat surprising win of Trump over Clinton, Moscow likely calculated that their new strategy had succeeded. Yet with Biden winning in 2020 and democracy and good governance firmly back on the agenda (albeit with focus initially on China), the Russians must have realised that they had overplayed what they considered to be a winning hand. This came on top of dashed hopes of gaining US respect and recognition during the George W. Bush administration, which came to naught with Iraq, colour revolutions and, later, the Arab spring under the Obama administration.

And so, we are where we are now. With smear campaigns against the Biden family and top officials within Ukrainian circles not gaining traction, the Russians have decided to hunker down and re-focus on previous Cold War strategies. Top amongst them is a buffer zone to surround Russia and insulate it from the debilitating democratic influence, particularly in Ukraine, where its size and proximity to Russia mean that it is a danger of becoming an example and a call to Russia’s own citizens to question why they live in the conditions they do. Staunch the wound before they bleed out.

And those questions are becoming ever more insistent, both within Russia itself, as well as within the independent states surrounding Russia. The excesses of the Yanukovych regime, when his lavish estates and golden toilets were exposed for the world to see by protestors in 2014 also caused Russians to question similar presidential holdings in Sochi. Ukraine, Georgia, and increasingly Armenia, have become examples to other autocratic states in the region of what democratic change can achieve. It gives impetus to opposition movements in Russia, itself, with the advent of Navalny, and even in countries like Belarus during the last elections.

The Berlin Wall had insulated Russia for some thirty years from this debilitating democratic contagion. Their hope is that a new barrier will serve the same role for the next thirty and assure authoritarian continuity. Will the current political circumstances in the region lead to the formation of a new Berlin Wall approach? We’re likely to know that answer very soon.

Topics

Conflict Resolution and Security

Democracy and Elections

International Relations and Geopolitics

Ukraine Conflict

Regions

Former Soviet Union

Ukraine

Levelling up: Six key takeaways from the Basque experience of regional competitiveness and inclusive growth

Article by Dr Caroline Gray

December 15, 2021

Levelling up: Six key takeaways from the Basque experience of regional competitiveness and inclusive growth

Citing the Basque Country as an example of inclusive economic growth may, at first, seem to many rather a paradox. In the context of Spain’s model of devolution, the Basque Country, one of Spain’s 17 regions known as ‘autonomous communities’, is more often accused of lacking in solidarity with the rest of the country, given the way the region’s financing model works. For historical reasons, the Basque Country, along with the neighbouring region of Navarre, raises almost all its own taxes under a model of near fiscal autonomy. This system has ended up allowing it to keep more of its wealth within its own region when compared to some of Spain’s other regions with broadly similar levels of GDP per capita like the Madrid Community or Catalonia, which come under a different, revenue-sharing model of devolved funding known as the common financing system.[1]

While acknowledging this, however, it is also possible to recognise that the eternal, often heavily politicised debate about regional financing levels in Spain has obscured awareness of other significant factors about the Basque experience of economic development.

Firstly, within the Basque region itself, economic growth has in fact proved highly inclusive. The region features among the top in Europe not only in terms of GDP per capita, but also in having a low percentage of population at risk of poverty or social exclusion.[2] The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which has almost consistently governed the region since the first regional elections of the democratic period in 1980, combines a broadly centre-right stance on economic policy with a broadly centre-left one on social policy. It has long treated economic competitiveness and social inclusion as mutually re-enforcing objectives, as have other key actors and institutions involved in shaping the region’s economic strategy. The latest Basque Competitiveness Report published by the Basque Institute of Competitiveness, a research centre linked to the University of Deusto, exemplifies this dual approach with its focus on ‘Constructing Competitiveness for Wellbeing’.[3]

Secondly, fiscal autonomy is not a panacea. While the relatively generous settlement that the region receives under its different financing model inevitably goes some way towards explaining its ability to finance its social spending, that is not the only contributing factor. Effective governance has also played a role. The Basque region was a pioneer in areas such as the creation of a very successful cluster policy in the 1990s, and it has developed a strong system of multi-level governance and network of public-private collaboration over the decades that helps to explain its success. Throughout this process, it has devoted considerable time (and resources) to learning from other models and experiences – for example, the region was one of the first to work with American academic Michael E. Porter in the late twentieth century.[4] While no place-based territorial strategy can ever simply be copied elsewhere, examining the Basque experience can still offer interesting insights for other contexts.

What, then, might we draw from the Basque experience that’s relevant to the UK ‘levelling up’ agenda? This was the subject of a recent Aston Centre for Europe and Foreign Policy Centre event that I chaired, with the participation of four speakers: Dr Edurne Magro, Senior Researcher at Orkestra-Basque Institute of Competitiveness; Bill Murray OBE, adviser on the Spanish economy at Global Counsel; Dr Igor Calzada, Senior Researcher at the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD), Cardiff University; and Henriette Lyttle-Breukelaar, Director of Economic Strategy at Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership. Six key takeaways that emerged from the discussion are as follows:

Stable, predictable financing for local and regional authorities is critical. This is what has enabled the Basque region to engage in a forward-looking type of economic thinking over years and to take forward a whole series of initiatives on social policy and on inclusion. It is also what has allowed it to develop a longstanding network of partnerships between different actors and institutions within the region working towards the goal of inclusive regional competitiveness. This contrasts with the UK experience of short, competitive funding cycles for local government that don’t tend to facilitate longer-term planning and the formation of robust partnerships.

Local input and distributed leadership are fundamental to strategy design and implementation. The heavily centralised nature of the UK is often cited as one of the main contributing factors to the level of regional inequality.[5] In this regard, the Basque region is an example of how a multi-stakeholder approach to strategy design and implementation at local and regional level can underpin inclusive growth and territorial competitiveness. While the Basque government steers the region’s overall economic and social strategy, input also comes from other tiers of government within the region (local and provincial) and from a network of other relevant public and private institutions, such as the cluster associations and the Basque technology centres. The result is a web of multi-level and multi-layer processes that shape the design and implementation of Basque regional strategy.[6] This is not without considerable coordination challenges that require innovative governance solutions.

Local and regional empowerment must go hand in hand with accountability. In the Basque Country, accountability stems first and foremost from the region’s fiscal autonomy model, which puts the onus on the Basque authorities to collect taxes. While that level of substate revenue-raising power is specific to the Basque Country (and neighbouring Navarre) for historical reasons and not easily translatable to other contexts, accountability and good governance can be fostered via other mechanisms to promote the effective use of public funds.

Focus on area-specific strengths and deepen and diversify from that basis. The Basque Country’s economic success stems in no small measure from its decision, back in the 1980s, to build on its existing strengths in industry by pursuing an industry-focused economic transformation at a time when the wider political and academic climate did not look favourably on such a focus. That decision, and the commitment to a positive industrial strategy ever since, has consistently paid dividends.[7]

A degree of cross-party collaboration is crucial to avoid short-termism. Competition between the Conservatives and Labour has consistently prevented a longer-term, cross-party vision to address the UK’s place-based inequalities. Even within and between some governments of the same colour, studies have shown a lack of institutional and policy stability in this area.[8] Meanwhile, within the Basque region, a degree of cross-party buy-in on the region’s economic and social strategy has been possible, which has contributed to facilitating longer-term planning. In part, this stemmed from a need for parties of different colour to stick together on economic and social policy during the difficult first decades of the democratic period when Basque terrorist group ETA was active. However, coalition politics have also played a role both then and since, favouring more consensual politics in certain areas. Although the Basque Nationalist Party has governed almost consistently in the region since the first elections of 1980 and has therefore dominated policy making, it has never won an outright majority and has almost always had to govern in coalition, usually with the Basque Socialists. While it would be naïve to expect any change in the degree of competition between Conservatives and Labour over inclusive growth strategies, the levelling-up white paper, which is now expected in early 2022, [9] needs to provide the basis for a longer-term framework that goes well beyond the current government term to have a meaningful impact in tackling inequalities.

A wide diversity of potential stakeholders should be included in the design and implementation of inclusive growth strategies. Civil society has long played a role in shaping the Basque ethos of combined economic and social policy and the region is renowned for its longstanding cooperative tradition. The small size of the region and its level of social cohesion have undoubtedly helped to give an overall coherence to Basque strategy design and implementation. Even the Basque Country, however, cannot rest on its laurels. Transformative alliances between the public sector, the private sector, academia and civil society could evolve to incorporate additional stakeholders and afford a greater role to social innovation.[10]

Caroline Gray is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Aston University. She specialises in the politics of Spain and wider Europe, focusing on territorial politics and party systems. She is the author of Territorial Politics and the Party System in Spain: Continuity and Change since the Financial Crisis (Routledge, 2020).

[1] For more information about how the different regional financing systems work, see Caroline Gray, Nationalist Politics and Regional Financing Systems in the Basque Country and Catalonia, Bilbao: Diputación Foral de Bizkaia (Doctoral Thesis Collection), 2016, https://conciertoeconomico.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/tesis_gray_nationalists_politics.pdf

[2] Mari Jose Aranguren Querejeta, Patricia Canto Farachala, Edurne Magro Montero, Mikel Navarro Arancegul, James R. Wilson and Jesus Mari Valdaliso, Long-term Regional Strategy for Inclusive Competitiveness: The Basque Country Case, 2008-2020, Orkestra-Basque Institute of Competitiveness, Cuadernos Orkestra 05/2021, Bilbao: Deusto University Publications, p. 1, https://www.orkestra.deusto.es/images/investigacion/publicaciones/informes/cuadernos-orkestra/210008-Basque-Country-Territorial-Strategy.pdf

[3] Susana Franco and James Wilson (eds.), 2021 Basque Country Competitiveness Report. Constructing Competitiveness for Wellbeing, Orkestra-Basque Institute of Competitiveness, Bilbao: Deusto University Publications, 2021, https://www.orkestra.deusto.es/en/research/basque-country-competitiveness-report

[4] Jon Azua, The Competitive Advantage of Nations. A Successful Experience, Realigning the Strategy to Transform the Economic and Social Development of the Basque Country, Orkestra-Basque Institute of Competitiveness, Cuadernos Orkestra 2015/12, Bilbao: Deusto University Publications, https://www.orkestra.deusto.es/images/investigacion/publicaciones/informes/cuadernos-orkestra/Competitive-advantage-nations-Jon-Azua.pdf

[5] Luke Raikes, Arianna Giovannini and Bianca Getzel, Divided and connected: Regional inequalities in the North, the UK and the developed world – State of the North 2019, Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), November 2019, https://www.ippr.org/research/publications/state-of-the-north-2019

[6] Jesús M. Valdaliso, The Basque Country: past trajectory and path dependency in policy and strategy-making, in Jesús M. Valdaliso and James R. Wilson (eds.), Strategies for Shaping Territorial Competitiveness (pbk), London and New York: Routledge, 2020 [2015], pp. 113-130

[7] Mari Jose Aranguren Querejeta, Patricia Canto Farachala, Edurne Magro Montero, Mikel Navarro Arancegul, James R. Wilson and Jesus Mari Valdaliso, Long-term Regional Strategy for Inclusive Competitiveness: The Basque Country Case, 2008-2020, Orkestra-Basque Institute of Competitiveness, Cuadernos Orkestra 05/2021, Bilbao: Deusto University Publications, https://www.orkestra.deusto.es/images/investigacion/publicaciones/informes/cuadernos-orkestra/210008-Basque-Country-Territorial-Strategy.pdf

[8] Andrew Westwood, Marianne Sensier and Nicola Pike, Levelling Up, Local Growth and Productivity in England, Productivity Insights Paper No.005, The Productivity Institute, December 2021, https://www.productivity.ac.uk/publications/levelling-up-local-growth-and-productivity-in-england/

[9] Alex Forsyth, Levelling up: Government white paper likely to be delayed to 2022, BBC News, December 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59541369

[10] Igor Calzada, Democratising Smart Cities? Penta-Helix Multistakeholder Social Innovation Framework, Smart Cities, 3(4), 1145-1172, October 2020, https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities3040057

Topics

Good Governance and Institutional Reform

International Relations and Geopolitics

Regions

Europe

Spain

United Kingdom

A summit for democracy or building a bloc to counter China and Russia?

Article by Dr Alex Folkes

President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy took place virtually at the end of last week. Attended by a large number of nations whose leaders made a slew of welcome policy commitments aimed at showing their democratic and human rights credentials; however, both the purpose and outcome of the event remain unclear.

The principle divide is between those who see this as a Summit for Democracy as the name implies or those, such as the UK, who see it as a meeting of many of the world’s largest democracies and semi-democracies who want to use the might of these countries to counter the threats posed by Russia and China. A large number of events on the fringes of the main summit also concentrated on the idea of bringing states together in opposition to autocratic menace.

Ted Piccone has analysed the 112 strong guest list in great detail and found that some of the countries excluded are ranked higher by the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law index than some who were round the table.^[1] That was probably always going to be the case. As Piccone points out, other metrics are available, direction of travel is also key and there are geopolitical considerations to be accounted for (which is probably why Pakistan makes the cut alongside India). But his key point is this: If the aim was a summit to strengthen democracy and the rule of law around the globe then inviting those with a worse ranking is not a problem. We hope they will learn from the experience and make improvements in future. But if the summit is being set up as the lead in to a club of democracies to counterbalance the authoritarian states then it very much matters that those around the table are the ones who can genuinely point to their rule of law and human rights as being in the top tiers.

President Biden has strong credentials in this field. He has championed democratic values for many years and this event was a key plank in his election manifesto. That it had to be downgraded due to the pandemic is understandable, but it is laudable that it still went ahead. The world has seen many summits based on economics, military and environmental matters, but this is the first time in many years that the focus has been (or should have been) on human rights.

Much of the event took place behind closed doors, but the opening statements by world leaders were released publicly.^[2] These leaders took a variety of approaches. Some simply lauded their own achievements whilst others made commitments to improve in various areas. Notable were the approaches of Poland, which concentrated on the problems in Belarus, and of the Czech Republic who were the only country to specifically mention the need for election observation and democratic assistance.

But it is the behind the scenes deals which matter most. Was this an event that aimed to shore up democratic principles in countries which are backsliding and encourage moves in the right direction among others? Or was it an event where a new bloc could be formed of the big democratic powers to stand in opposition to authoritarian states, particularly as Russia builds forces on the border with Ukraine?

President Biden, in his opening address, suggested it should be the former and he mentioned a number of changes he wanted to see in his own country. The idea that no nation is a perfect democracy was important to establish from the outset and Biden’s references to the challenges his country faces were cautionary.

In the latter camp firmly stands UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. His idea is for a D10, a small group of the biggest nations based on the G7 but expanded to include South Korea, Australia and (most controversially) India. His idea is to use this group, selected for their size and economic might, to stand against Russia and, particularly, China.

Others have proposed similar mechanisms with the same goals, but are slightly more inclusive. The Alliance of Democracies group sees a congregation of 30 or so states.^[3] But again, their focus would be on countering Russia and China rather than promoting freedom of the media, more democratic elections, and equal rights for women and national minorities or unbiased courts.

The Summit is being followed by a so-called ‘year of action’ before another event (hopefully in person) at the end of 2022. Key to deciding which camp has won will be the list of actions that are envisaged.

Thomas Pepinsky, writing for the Brookings Institution, said:^[4]

“The Summit for Democracy will be most effective if it remains focused on strengthening and defending democracy rather than constructing a dichotomy between the world’s democracies and their authoritarian counterparts. It would also be a mistake to focus on corruption, economic performance, and material prosperity as areas in which democracies can outperform authoritarian regimes.”

The same organisation has updated its ten commitments for enhancing democracy, and these address some of the key issues both in established democracies such as the US, and in countries where democratic values are newer.^[5]

The two ideas, of an alliance of democracies and a summit for better democracy around the world are not mutually exclusive, of course. But if improvements in human rights really are going to be made then it is important that the two approaches are not confused.

Image by The White House under (CC).

^[1] Ted Piccone, The awkward guests: Parsing the Summit for Democracy invitation list, Brookings, December 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/12/07/the-awkward-guests-parsing-the-summit-for-democracy-invitation-list/?utm_campaign=Foreign%20Policy&utm_medium=email&utm_content=193679263&utm_source=hs_email

^[2] It has been reported that the address by the Leader of Taiwan was not made public due to potential conflict with the USA’s ‘One China’ policy.

^[3] Ash Jain, Matthew Kroenig, and Jonas Parello-Plesner, An Alliance of Democracies: From concept to reality in an era of strategic competition, Atlantic Council, December 2021, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/an-alliance-of-democracies-from-concept-to-reality-in-an-era-of-strategic-competition/

^[4] Thomas Pepinsky, Biden’s Summit for Democracy should focus on rights, not economics and geopolitics, Brookings, November 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/11/22/bidens-summit-for-democracy-should-focus-on-rights-not-economics-and-geopolitics/?utm_campaign=Foreign%20Policy&utm_medium=email&utm_content=190756738&utm_source=hs_email

^[5] Susan Corke, Norman Eisen, Jonathan Katz, Andrew Kenealy, James Lamond, Alina Polyakova, and Torrey Taussig, Democracy Playbook 2021: 10 Commitments for Advancing Democracy, Brookings, December 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/research/democracy-playbook-2021-10-commitments-for-advancing-democracy/

Topics

Democracy and Elections

International Relations and Geopolitics

Regions

United States and Canada

United States

A ‘Force for Good’? – Executive Summary

Article by Tim Molesworth and Adam Hug

December 6, 2021

The nature of conflict in the world is shifting, along with the challenges they present for the UK. The number of violent conflicts today is as high as at any point since the end of World War II and they are lasting longer due to complex transnational dynamics and increasing internationalisation. Fragile and conflict affected countries (FCACs) pose threats to international peace and security, undermining the stability of neighbouring countries, provide opportunities for transnational terrorist networks and criminal groups to operate, drive displacement of populations and provide opportunities for the UK’s geopolitical competitors to exploit for strategic advantage.

The UK has significant experience and expertise engaging in FCACs. However, the UK’s approach to the world and its capacities to do so are changing. The 2020 Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy outlines a strategic framework for how the UK engages with the world. It calls for a more joined up and strategic approach between the foreign policy tools which the UK has available. Recent institutional changes, including the merger of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department for International Development (DFID) into the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), provide an opportunity to more explicitly develop that joined up approach – particularly when dealing with complex, multidimensional problems such as those driving conflict in FCACs.

This essay collection looks at how various aspects of the UK’s foreign policy engagement in FCACs is adapting to these changes and the impact these may have on peace and conflict in FCACs. It makes several key recommendations to inform how the UK undertakes future engagement in FCACs. The UK should:

Embed consideration of conflict sensitivity across all government actions in FCACs;
Ensure that its approach to engaging in FCACs puts peacebuilding and peacemaking in a central role, not in competition with other UK policy priorities;
Use a wide range of tools to achieve its peace goals in FCACs including: diplomacy, sanctions, aid, trade, military engagement, peacebuilding, mediation and private sector regulation;
Find the right balance between efforts aimed at promoting stability, for example through elite bargains and political deals, and addressing the structural drivers of violent conflict;
Strengthen its peacebuilding capacity by bringing in more specialist expertise from the peacebuilding sector; improving coordination and information sharing across government and with external experts; enhancing embassy and FCDO operational capacity to support local peace actors; enabling local programming to become more responsive to evolving local situations; providing more settled guidance to the CSSF; and enabling longer project timelines for peacebuilding work;
Leverage its convening power to shape international aid efforts towards peace;
Address the gender gaps in its policies and plans, ensuring that it mainstreams gender, women, peace and security priorities in all government commitments;
Push for greater community accountability for peacekeeping missions and prevent resource diversion into counter-terror operations and other forms of warfighting;
Strengthen private sector conflict sensitivity with an enhanced modern slavery act, new legal responsibilities for companies fuelling conflict and improving public procurement;
Strengthen due diligence checks on both the direct use of arms sold and on the indirect consequences of the arms trade with clearer red lines on conflict actors;
Prioritise partnership, both locally and internationally, in its engagement on FCACs;
Understand the link between climate change and peace, ensuring that its work on climate change is conflict sensitive so that climate transformation does not embed the structural drivers of conflict; and
Address its role, and that of its Overseas Territories, as facilitators of international corruption.

Topics

Brexit

Civil Society

Conflict Resolution and Security

Covid-19

Energy, Environment and Resources

Good Governance and Institutional Reform

Human Rights

International Development

International Relations and Geopolitics

Regions

Europe

United Kingdom

A ‘Force for Good’? – Introduction

Article by Tim Molesworth and Adam Hug

The foreign policy of the United Kingdom (UK) is undergoing a period of evolution and adaptation, responding to: a changing geopolitical context; a different set of relationships with allies and partners due to Brexit; shifting priorities and resources due to the COVID pandemic; and institutional changes within Her Majesty’s Government (HMG). At the heart of this adaptation is the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, which has provided a framework for thinking about how the UK engages overseas moving forward.[1] While providing a significant sense of direction, the Integrated Review does leave a lot of the operational detail to be worked out. This includes looking at how the UK engages with, and responds, to countries facing instability and war.

This essay collection looks to explore the implications of the Integrated Review, and the UK’s changing place in the world more broadly, for the ways the UK engages with and in fragile and conflict affected countries (FCACs). The term ‘fragile and conflict affected countries’ is used, for the purposes of this publication, to denote countries experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, violent conflict. While there are a number of different frameworks and indices available for assessing fragility and risk of conflict, each of which focus on different aspects of fragility leading to conflict, the term is used here more as a catch-all to think about the particular set of priorities, needs and challenges involved with working around, working in, or working on, conflict related issues in terms of the UK’s foreign policy engagement.[2]

The UK has established expertise engaging in FCACs on conflict related issues, but this engagement is shifting, as the nature of conflict evolves globally, as a response to Britain’s changing place in the world, and in response to institutional changes. This essay collection looks to explore this changing engagement further. It examines a number of the different ways in which the UK writ large, both at governmental level and more broadly, engages in FCACs, including: its strategic intent; how it works with UN peace structures; its peace-focused mediation and peacebuilding work; humanitarian and development assistance; private sector involvement; its work on gender in conflict; how the UK’s work on climate change interacts with peace and conflict; and the changing role of the military.

This introduction aims to set the scene by outlining some of the ways in which conflict has been evolving. It then looks at why the UK engages in FCACs – what it gains and what it gives through its involvement. It looks at the tools it has available to have an impact in FCACs, the challenge of trying to make a positive difference within the resource and strategic limitations placed on the UK.

Fragile and conflict affected countries in a changing world

Globally, the last decade has been a conflicted one, with historically high levels of conflict-related casualties and an increasing number of armed conflicts. According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, the year 2018 saw a peak in the numbers of armed conflicts globally, 52, matched since 1946 only by a peak in the early 1990s when the Cold War settlement unravelled.[3] However, while there has been a rise in humanitarian ceasefires over that period, there has not been a corresponding rise in peace agreements (unlike in the early 1990s) – with the number of conflicts stabilising at a high level.

Worryingly, over the last five years there has been a growing internationalisation of internal conflicts.[4] This not only represents a greater number of conflicts within national borders in which external international actors are involved, but also how a wider range of international actors, both state and non-state, are involved – including regional actors. A greater number of international conflict actors significantly increases the complexities of conflict in FCACs, risks embedding international competition into national and local conflicts, and makes the job of promoting sustainable peace more difficult. Motivations for foreign intervention are informed by broader geopolitical considerations, ideological and economic interests, or based on an intent to disrupt. Foreign involvement may be direct, as in the case of Yemen or Syria, through proxies such as private security/mercenaries, in Libya or Mozambique for example, or by providing meaningful diplomatic, financial and material support to national conflict actors.

Many familiar drivers of conflict lay the heart of the problems in FCACs, including political, social and economic inequalities, non-inclusive governance, historic grievances and the legacies of past conflicts. The drivers of conflict in each country, and opportunities to transform that conflict towards sustainable peace, need to be considered in nuanced ways. However, a long-term trend is also the increasing significance of transnational dynamics to fragility and conflict. The direct impacts of climate change, including extreme weather events, are contributing to environmental, economic, humanitarian and social pressures in the most vulnerable countries, exacerbating conflict dynamics. Transnational crime, particularly around drugs and human trafficking, fuels conflict related economies and creates incentive for instability. Despite the efforts of the last 20 years, transnational terrorism and violent extremism remain an evolving threat, embedded within countries experiencing violent conflict, but also significant in countries under social and economic pressure. While having conflict effects within FCACs, none of these problems can be addressed solely at country level, requiring regional or global strategies and cooperation.

Why does, or should, the UK engage in promoting peace in FCACs?

There are a number of different reasons why the UK has historically engaged in promoting peace, building on its complex legacy of engagement around the world. The UK is a member of the UN Security Council, the fourth highest military spender, until recently the world’s fourth largest aid donor and a country possessing both an experienced diplomatic network and an internationally recognised cluster of peacebuilding expertise both in civil society and academia.^[5] It has a long-standing desire to show leadership on the world stage, currently embodied in the Government’s concept of ‘Global Britain’. This stated desire for continued leadership has been somewhat tempered by a sense that policy in recent years has tended to take the form of firefighting and ad hoc responses to crisis, the UK public’s understandable fatigue towards further military engagement and the recent reductions in the aid budget. For much of the last two decades the UK’s involvement in FCACs has often been driven by its counter-terrorism objectives and an increasing interest in stemming the source of potential refugee and migrant flows. Beyond government, British business, notably but not exclusively in the extractive sector, retains economic interests in fragile and conflict affected countries around the world that both directly shape conflict dynamics and potentially influence the UK Government’s political interests in these countries.

When examining the Integrated Review for signs of the UK’s priorities in this field it is worth noting that while the term ‘peace’ is used generically, neither peacemaking or peacebuilding are mentioned explicitly. The primary section on ‘Conflict and instability’ falls within the framework of ‘Strengthening security and defence at home and overseas’, highlighting the security rather the development lens through which this agenda is often seen by Government. This framing is likely to lead to changes in the UK’s approach, such as narrowing the focus of the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) to ‘the foundational link between stability, resilience and security, and work with governments and civil society in regions that are of greatest priority to the UK’. However, on a more values focused note the Integrated Review has committed the Government to acting as a ‘force for good’ in the world, with ‘conflict resolution’ identified a number of times as a part of this agenda.^[6]

Engaging in FCACs poses significant challenges for the UK. Conflict dynamics are complex and murky, making it difficult to know what to do or with whom to engage; the positive, sustainable impacts of interventions cannot be guaranteed; interventions may inadvertently fuel conflict in unexpected ways; and significant operational challenges make it difficult to ensure the safety and wellbeing of staff and partners, while increasing costs. In certain country contexts today’s conflicts may have their origins in the UK’s colonial legacy or where more recently the UK (or its business interests) may be a party to a conflict (both directly or indirectly), complicating the scope for current and future engagement. Providing support to both governments and peoples in FCACs to transform conflicts and promote sustainable peace is challenging and complex work, that requires a level of policy integration that the UK Government aspires to but has not always achieved in the past.

This publication seeks to set out a number of reasons why the UK should persevere with engaging with FCACs. It is clear that there are a number of benefits of the UK doing so, both as a broader value given by the UK and as value to the UK.

The first is the importance of contributing to international peace and security. Where successful, investing in conflict prevention, conflict reduction and peacebuilding reduces uncertainty in the international peace and security landscape, reducing threats to the UK and to other states from instability, transnational terrorism and geopolitical competition, while strengthening international norms around governance, human rights and international relations.

Promoting peace in FCACs is important in terms of improving sustainable development outcomes for vulnerable people in FCACs. This is directly true for reducing conflict related deaths and development outcomes related to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions – of which the UK has been a champion.[7] However, it is also true of the other Sustainable Development Goals generally. Violent conflict has a staggering impact on development outcomes including gender, health, inequalities, poverty reduction, education and economic opportunity.^[8] It has a huge macroeconomic cost for affected countries: on GDP; on infrastructure; and access to global markets.^[9] For the UK as an actor continuing to be committed to the Sustainable Development Goals and reducing poverty, supporting governments and communities in FCACs to prevent or respond to conflict must be a priority.

UK engagement in FCACs also has direct benefits to its ability to act through ‘soft-power’. The UK has developed an important reputation for engaging constructively in FCACs, particularly through the former Department for International Development (DFID) and the CSSF which, together with other areas of aid assistance, has strengthened its moral weight and norm-shaping capacity relating to conflict within the international community. Engagement within FCACs provides UK with a ‘place at the table’ alongside other international actors when shaping the international response to conflicts, especially important when dealing with conflicts with geopolitical significance or of direct importance to UK security. Support to FCACs also facilitates relationships between the UK and the governments and communities within those countries, with the potential to bolster the UK’s reputation and encourage partnerships. These are important components of the UK’s ability to project its influence and support its interests globally.

The moral and prestige cases for engagement may persuade different politicians of the importance of the cause but are unlikely to persuade the treasury, whose control of the purse strings (and at times the political narrative) is often decisive. Investing in reducing conflict and promoting peace has the potential for significant savings to treasury. Rt Hon. Andrew Mitchell’s essay in this collection quotes the maxim that if you do not invest in diplomacy you have to buy more ammunition, however the cost of conflict is not only measured in the direct costs to the UK of intervention but in managing the wider shocks to the global economy and the impact of instability on sensitive issues like refugees and migration.

Quite rightly, as a ‘force for good’, the UK shoulders a significant portion of the burden relating to the global humanitarian response. In 2019, the UK provided £1.5 billion towards humanitarian assistance, the vast majority to countries experiencing violent conflict or dealing with displacement due to violent conflict.^[10] In 2021, the UN appealed globally for $35 billion USD to address humanitarian needs, again the vast majority of which are related to conflict.^[11] Conflict prevention, conflict reduction and peacebuilding efforts cost a fraction of the amount needed for humanitarian response and have the potential to significantly reduce the humanitarian needs arising out of conflict.^[12] This ‘invest to save’ approach to conflict work is only likely to become more relevant as climate change intensifies competition for access to resources including water and arable land in areas at risk of conflict. While it is often hard to prove a counterfactual, and most peacebuilding work is incremental and long-term, peacebuilders need to be able to cite successful examples of potential crises averted wherever possible to strengthen their case to government.

In terms of the wider economy also conflict prevention, conflict reduction and peacebuilding also have a direct impact on the sustainability of previous and concurrent UK investments in FCACs, both through aid assistance and the private sector. It does this by reducing risk and facilitating an enabling environment for the long-term institutional and economic support that can help FCACs achieve sustainable peace. Ultimately, however, the UK does and should support governments and communities in FCACs to work towards sustainable peace because it is the right thing to do, and because not doing something to mitigate or respond to conflict would be unthinkable. A UK which sees itself as a ‘force for good’, which advocates for an international system based on rules and norms, and which promotes ‘British values’, would not be able to stand by and shirk its moral responsibilities.

How does the UK engage in fragile and conflict affected countries?

The first question relating to UK engagement in FCACs is what can the UK meaningfully do? Firstly, it is necessary to stress that the UK as an actor, can only do so much. In few contexts will the UK be able to play a determinative role in addressing conflict on its own. To have an impact, the UK must consider the complementarity of its work within broader national and international efforts, improve the coordination and integration of its actions, and focus on partnerships with likeminded countries and groups in local and global civil society.

Nevertheless, the UK is able to deploy a relatively impressive (compared with many other states) range of capacities to have an impact on peace and conflict. Furthermore, after its withdrawal from the EU the UK has new tools that it is able to use independently to support its foreign policy objectives, albeit at the expense of being able to draw on the EU’s institutional weight, and new partnerships – notably with Canada – that can respond to emerging conflicts in more flexible ways.[13] While the UK’s capacities in each context are different, a common set of tools exists, including:

Diplomacy – At a bilateral level, the UK is able to leverage its broad diplomatic presence and relationships to influence and encourage governments and elites in FCACs to abide by international norms, though this is most effective where the UK has strong ties or relationships already in place. Perhaps more significantly, the UK has a strong convening power, both through its wide diplomatic engagement globally, its strong engagement in multilateral institutions, and through its permanent membership of the Security Council, which allows it to influence and shape international diplomatic responses to conflict situations. The UK’s role as a convening power has been shown in its ability to bring together development actors, both governmental and philanthropic, to coalesce around specific solutions, with the work of Gavi – the Vaccine Alliance being a prominent example. Using its role at the UN and membership of groupings, such as the Commonwealth, the UK has scope to further facilitate and support South-South dialogue and collaboration.

Sanctions –The UK’s Magnitsky-style personal sanctions (asset freezes and travel bans) on human rights abusers and those involved in corruption have begun to be gradually deployed since their first use in summer 2020.^[14] As has been highlighted in previous FPC publications and elsewhere, these have the potential to make a significant contribution to the UK’s role as a ‘force for good’ in the world.[15] However, it has been made clear by peacebuilding practitioners involved in this project, that the potential use of sanctions in a conflict context is more contested, given the need to maintain lines of dialogue with potential parties to the conflict.^[16] So these sanctions, and the threat of their use, are a tool that should be deployed but will need to be used selectively in a conflict context – when a stick may be needed to push a key actor to the negotiating table or into compliance with an agreement – with thought given to how such sanctions may be toggled on and off to incentivise cooperation in order to meet the UK’s peacebuilding objectives in a given context.

Peacemaking and political settlements – The UK has not historically been an actor directly involved in mediation activities at a state level, however the Integrated Review commits the UK to place a greater emphasis on the UK’s role in mediation and ‘dispute resolution’.[17] The UK has clear assets that would assist it in this endeavour: its diplomatic network, soft power attractiveness, deep academic and civil society resources that can be drawn upon and a fine selection of stately homes available to host peace talks.^[18] However, the UK is not a Norway, Switzerland or Kazakhstan and its ambitions to act as a mediator in the future may be complicated by colonial legacies and perceptions of its geopolitical interests. In many parts of the world it has been, and in some cases still remains, a significant figure in current events. In certain country contexts the UK may fall between two stools, too involved to be seen as a neutral arbiter but not powerful enough to enforce its will. However, the stated desire to play this role may be related to developing the UK’s ‘offer’ in the Indo-Pacific, where the previous withdrawal from East of Suez for the last half century may have dulled some of the rougher edges of the UK’s historic legacy in areas without a direct colonial past, as compared to the more active presence (with both benefits and drawbacks) in Africa and the Middle East in recent decades. Either way the UK does play important roles in support of international peace processes, particularly those led by the UN, where it is able to use its position as a P5 member to influence and shape outcomes at the Security Council level, while also providing diplomatic, technical and financial support for peace processes at an operational level.

Peacebuilding – Targeted support for institutions and communities to address the root causes of conflict and to build capacities for peace is an area in which the UK has significant expertise – both within FCDO and among the broader UK peacebuilding community of experts and NGOs. The UK’s CSSF has been a strategic source of funding for such activities, though it will be important to recognise the impact on the sector of their reduced ability to access substantial EU project funding.

Aid – The UK is a significant aid donor by any measure. This gives it significant influence in terms of its ability to engage with governments in countries receiving support, while also allowing it to target structural drivers of conflict, including poverty, governance and inequality. Perhaps equally significantly, the size of the UK’s aid contribution compared to other donors in many countries, gives it the ability to influence and lead the coordination and strategic prioritisation of international assistance. This has the potential to allow the UK to help shape the way international aid is delivered more broadly.[19]

Trade – The UK’s newly independent trade policy, in theory at least, enables it to incorporate the ideas of conflict sensitivity into its future agreements and strategy. However, it has been clear in the initial post-Brexit phase of negotiations that the need for speed in mirroring the provision of previous EU trade deals and desire to take new economic opportunities to show progress has taken precedence over using trade more strategically. In practice, however FCACs represent a very small portion of the UK’s foreign trade. As a result, the UK is rarely able to use trade policy to influence peace and conflict in FCACs directly. Nonetheless, where the UK has trading relationships with other states which may be involved in conflicts, it has the potential to apply conditions to trade to influence behaviour. As a result of the UK mirroring existing EU trade deals it now has trade deals with a number of FCACs either individually or as part of regional groupings that may be of potential relevance in future.[20] Even in circumstances where there would be limited scope to use trade relations for the purposes of leverage, a conflict sensitive approach to trade policy would see it be more responsive to human rights and conflict concerns (for example the UK was slow to amend its trade guidance for Myanmar even after the expulsion of the Rohingyas). However, the most obvious example of where the UK applies conditional trade relates to arms and military equipment, though the extent to which this has an impact has been called into question in relation to the conflict in Yemen.

Private sector – Trading with FCACs poses risks that many private sector actors are often reluctant to take. However, as addressed in more detail in the essay by Phil Bloomer, the UK also has a role to play in ensuring the relatively small group of its firms, often in the extractive sectors, that do operate in FCACs abide by international best practice including the Ruggie principles for business and human rights.

Military engagement – Depending on political will, the UK military can be deployed in a variety of ways with respect to FCACs, including provision of training to national partners, deployment as advisors, monitors or peacekeepers under the auspices of the UN, provision of technical and operational support, and deployment in direct combat roles.

These tools are separate and are often the responsibilities of different parts of HMG. The challenge is to bring them together to ensure that their deployment is strategic and complementary. For this, a key strength is the way HMG is able to draw on cross-government resources and tools such as the Joint Assessment of Conflict and Stability (JACS), to identify key drivers of conflict and target interventions by different areas of government. Cross-government approaches are never perfect, however, the need to enhance joint approaches to foreign policy, and by extension to dealing with conflict, is a key message of the Integrated Review.

Few of the tools at the UK’s disposal in FCACs are coercive in nature, the (rare) combat deployment of troops, sanctions and, possibly, the use of UK supported UN Security Council resolutions being the exceptions. This highlights the importance of soft power to the UK’s ability to address conflict. Indeed, the UK is well known for its soft-power, from the attractiveness of its cultural assets to the good will generated by its aid spending – with positive perceptions globally – and the Integrated Review states the ambition for the UK to leverage this as a ‘soft-power superpower’.[21] The challenge, however, is that soft-power depends largely on perception. For the UK, using its soft-power necessitates consistently matching language around British values and being a ‘force for good’ with its actions and behaviour.

To be at its most effective with the resources it has the Government needs to find ways to further build conflict expertise within its ranks. The merger of the FCO and DFID has blended two quite different organisational cultures. While some of the benefits of the merger have been addressed elsewhere, the rotation system of postings and roles inherited from the FCO risks limiting the build-up of institutional knowledge on conflict-related issues and country contexts.[22] Part of the response could include bringing in more specialist expertise from the peacebuilding sector into government, building on the existing secondment systems for senior academics and opening up recruitment channels. The FCDO, Cabinet Office and other relevant departments could take further steps to improve ongoing coordination and information sharing with external experts through improved ongoing stakeholder engagement, reducing reliance on ad hoc and informal consultation with existing partners.

As part of efforts to improve integration across government more work can be done to improve coordination and cohesion between the analysts and policy setting departments and those responsible for project implementation and day-to-day work on country ‘desks’ work. The UK’s recent reliance on delivering aid spending through multilaterals may have improved coordination with other international partners, though perhaps at the expense of integration within, and local partnership building by, HMG. More needs to be done, through enhancing embassy and FCDO operational capacity, to find ways for the UK to support smaller, local peace actors rather than relying on multilaterals or large private consultancies. Building embassy and wider FCDO project management capacity may also enable local programming to become more responsive to evolving local situations and the learning developed through ongoing project delivery. In the wake of the release of the Integrated Review there may be scope to provide more settled priority setting and guidance to the CSSF, tackling a concern raised by experts that the funds priorities have regularly shifted despite conflict resolution work benefiting from a sustained focus.[23] Wherever possible efforts must be made to enable longer project timelines for peacebuilding work rather than short-term fixes hemmed in by the yearly budget cycle.

The UK could also make a substantive difference to improving the conditions in fragile and conflict affected countries by more firmly addressing the role of the UK and its Overseas Territories as facilitators of international corruption, with a property market and financial sector that operate as a piggy bank for the kleptocratic elites of many FCACs. Tackling this corruption can help limit capital flight and address some of the endemic drivers of conflict, while giving the UK greater credibility when attempting to pursue anti-corruption measures at a project level.

Where the UK engages

The Integrated Review has sought to reset the ‘areas of greatest priority for the UK’, which it defined as being the Indo-Pacific and European Neighbourhood, with other regions of historic UK focus such as the Middle East and Africa (beyond parts of East Africa and strategic players like Nigeria) being downgraded in priority for engagement beyond the trade policy and other economic ties. If this approach is applied in practice it would have a serious and potentially damaging impact on a number of FCACs across the world.

However, going more with the grain of the Integrated Review, as set out in the recent FPC and Westminster Foundation for Democracy report ‘Global Britain for an open world?’, there is a case for a focus on working on improving conditions in major regional players whether that is in terms of democracy (as in that previous report) or peacebuilding.[24] The importance of placing the UK’s engagement in individual FCACs in wider regional context should not be understated. For example were Nigeria’s descent into multiple conflicts to be left unchecked, it would not only remove an important presence from regional and UN peacekeeping forces but would send potentially destabilising shockwaves across West Africa.^[25] However where dynamics in FCACs have wider transnational and regional considerations, it seems unlikely that the UK can limit itself to engaging in a few key strategic countries.

Furthermore, as set out below and in other contributions to this essay collection, conflict sensitivity is a wider concept than simply where the UK invests government resources in peacebuilding or anything else. Applying the principles of conflict sensitivity in an integrated and cohesive way to all actions originating in the UK would make a difference, even in conflict contexts that the UK is pulling away from.

What should the UK be trying to achieve in FCACs?

The moral responsibility to, and benefits of, engaging in FCACs may be clear, as may be the tools available to do so. What is less clear is the question of what the UK should be specifically trying to achieve in its engagement in FCACs.

The Integrated Review speaks to a need to be ‘politically smart’ with the UK’s efforts at addressing conflict. This language speaks to the Elite Bargains and Political Deals work of the UK Stabilisation Unit, which acknowledges the need to ensure that efforts to advance peace in FCACs take into account the role and interests of elites in those countries who may be able to determine the success or failure of peace agreements.[26] It explicitly recognises that there may be a need for trade-offs between the need to secure political settlements and structural efforts to address longer-term drivers of conflict. The latter, it suggests, should be done later, and incrementally, in order not to undermine elite based peace deals. There is value to this perspective, recognising the central role politics plays in identifying mutual interests and achieving peace, and it encourages stronger theories of change linking efforts to address conflict and promote peace with political realities. As a number of expert contributors to this project’s fact-finding workshops identified, averting bad outcomes can be an important place to start before considering questions about how to actively make progress.

There is concern, though, that the shift to ‘politically smart’ engagement will, in practice, come to represent an exclusive preference for short-term stability over the need for longer-term structural transformation of conflict, and that ‘elite bargains’ demonstrates a potential willingness to tolerate, or even support, national partners in FCACs who act in ways contrary to the UK’s values over the longer-term. This could practically serve to embed conflict-driving elites further in society, while at best ignoring and at worst exacerbating structural drivers of conflict. A shift to a more cynical approach to engaging with FCACs would also do damage to the UK’s reputation as a values-based actor and undermine its credentials as a ‘force for good’. This is not compatible with its ambition to be a ‘soft-power superpower’.

Some of the essays in the collection highlight this potential tension between the goals of ending immediate conflict and ensuring stability and the more expansive and comprehensive goals of peacemaking (resolving violent conflict) and peacebuilding (transforming its root causes and drivers). Rt Hon. Andrew Mitchell MP emphasises the importance of stabilisation and the reduction or ending of active conflict as an immediate and more achievable first step, on which more cohesive approaches may build in time. While Dr Alexander Ramsbotham and Dr Teresa Dumasy make the case that addressing deeper drivers of violence, such including the participation of habitually excluded groups, like young people or women, has also been shown to make peace processes more effective and sustainable.

Particularly where the causes of conflict are situated at the grassroots within communities, track two dialogue and work on resolving issues of local friction can make a crucial difference in preventing and resolving conflict, both active and potential. However, where the conflict drivers are primarily political (or they have become so) then while community-led peace-building efforts may help reduce flashpoints and provide opportunities for dialogue they can be easily unmoored by political trends and forces far beyond their control. This is where the UK’s diplomatic presence and reasonable political heft can be of greater relevance. The challenge for the UK and like-minded partners in each context is to find the right balance between values and deliverability, ensuring that pragmatism does not devolve into cynical short-termism and that desired outcomes can be realised in practice.

The Government will need to take hard decisions over what course of action and set of priorities are appropriate for the particular context. It is important, then, to ensure that a politically smart approach to engaging in FCACs is also guided by the UK’s stated values. That does not mean that the UK should not be prepared to make difficult trade-offs when working in conflict, but that such efforts are properly coupled with bottom-up approaches to peace and sequenced with longer-term efforts to address structural drivers of conflict.

The importance of conflict sensitivity

The complexities of conflicts pose a particular challenge for international actors engaging in FCACs. Activities by international actors affect drivers of conflict, empower stakeholders and change the relationships between them. This may happen in unexpected and unintended ways, including potentially worsening conflict. Aid projects may provide more resources to one community than another, triggering inter-communal tensions. Access for humanitarian assistance may be controlled by conflict actors, who can instrumentalise it for political reasons. Aid resources may be stolen or redirected and used by armed groups to support conflict. However, this is not just applicable to aid activities. It is just as important to think through the cascading impacts of all forms of engagement in FCACs, including policy priorities, diplomatic statements and of trade and private sector engagement.

‘Conflict sensitivity’ is an approach to delivering international assistance in a way that recognises and responds to the potential of those activities to impact, and be impacted by, peace and conflict. Specifically, a conflict sensitive approach seeks to: 1) manage the impact conflict has on the ability to undertake activities; 2) minimise the ways in which activities could worsen conflict; and 3) maximise the ways in which aid activities could contribute to sustainable peace. Conflict sensitivity promotes the efficiency, impact and sustainability of international activities, by seeking to maximise the potential for positive results while reducing direct negative impacts.

While a perfect world would see international activities able to mitigate any risks that they contribute to conflict. In reality, conflict sensitivity recognises that most situations in which an international actor such as the UK engages carries the risks of doing some kind of harm, while not engaging also leads to harms. These situations require thinking through the trade-offs and the proportionality of those risks to the benefits of activities.

The UK has been a thought leader in conflict sensitivity within international aid. Funding from the UK helped pioneer conflict sensitivity tools in the 2000s and early 2010s.[27] Project proposals under the CSSF are formally reviewed for conflict sensitivity. The UK also supports a conflict sensitivity facility in South Sudan, and more recently in the Republic of Sudan and Afghanistan, which provide conflict analysis and support to donors and implementers to manage conflict sensitivity considerations. Yet conflict sensitivity does remain largely considered at a development project level within aid activities and is rarely considered in a structured way in relation to other activities or at a higher policy level, even within the UK.

Thinking through the conflict sensitivity of UK engagement in FCACs

Conflict sensitivity is an essential tool for thinking about how the UK engages in FCACs – not just for aid projects, but as a framework for considering the broader consequences of all types of UK activities. However, the Integrated Review does not mention conflict sensitivity once. If the Review’s goal of increasing the integration of the UK’s international approach is to be achieved, more thought needs to be given to how the broader consequences of UK activities on peace and conflict might be mainstreamed across UK foreign policy engagement in FCACs.

The Peaceful Change initiative has developed a tool for thinking about conflict sensitive decision-making which can shed some light on how such structured thinking could be applied. The tool involves running key decisions about activities through four ‘tests’ or questions as part of a due diligence framework for conflict sensitivity. If the decision to be taken passes each of these tests, then that decision could be considered to be conflict sensitive. Conflict sensitivity harms may still occur as a result of the decision, or new opportunities to contribute to peace emerge and the decision maker has the responsibility to respond to these appropriately, but in the meantime they can act in the confidence that they have duly considered conflict sensitivity considerations.

The tool is relevant for conflict sensitivity at all levels, from those making policy decisions, to those making day-to-day decisions about activities. It is also relevant for all types of engagement, not just aid activities but extending to diplomatic statements, trade, private sector involvement or military activities. It is also not intended to be a burdensome process, though the more significant the decision, the more effort one ought to spend thinking about conflict sensitivity. Rather it is about providing a structured framework that can inform the way international actors like the UK engage in FCACs.

The four tests are:

The objectives test: Are the objectives of the activity relevant, timely and appropriate?

The first test seeks to interrogate the explicit and implicit objectives of the activity. Is the proposed activity something needed within the FCAC? Is it the right time to undertake that activity? Is the activity appropriate – does it adhere to UK ‘values’ or find the right balance between short-term elite bargains and longer-term conflict transformation?

The harm-minimisation test: Have all reasonable measures been undertaken to identify and reduce the ways in which the activity could cause harm?

The second test looks at the various ways in which the activity could cause harm and worsen conflict. This could include things such as exposing partners and beneficiaries to greater risks; empowering actors involved in conflict; inequalities in the beneficiaries or activities; or provision of tangible or intangible support to actors involved in conflict. It then asks the decision maker to consider ways to minimise those risks and develop plans for responding to them if they do occur.

The benefit-maximisation test: Have all reasonable measures been undertaken to identify and leverage opportunities to contribute to peace through the activity?

The third test is the flipside of the second. Are there ways in which the activity could be undertaken that can contribute to peace, even if that is not its primary objective? Small changes to the way activities can be delivered or the choice of stakeholders involved can help bridge divisions between conflict groups, address structural drivers of conflict or increase the cost of engaging in conflict.

The proportionality test: Are the harms identified in test 2 proportional to the benefits identified in tests 1 and 3?

The final test asks the decision maker to consider whether they feel that the risk of potential harms caused by the activity are balanced by the potential benefits. There is no formal equation that can be used to work this out, but the process of considering it directly – particularly within a team – allows for the critical reflection needed for a sense of due diligence.

Answering these tests is not necessarily easy. They are likely to surface differing perspectives between officials and between different parts of government. This is their strength; they are intended to ensure that critical thinking and a sense of challenge is structured into the way decisions are taken, ensuring that the decision, when it is taken, has considered its broader conflict sensitivity impacts as much as possible. Ultimately, adopting a structured approach to considering the conflict sensitivity of the whole gamut of its engagement in FCACs, is essential for a state like the UK, with a stated ambition to be a ‘force for good’ and a ‘soft-power superpower’. While the framework above may not be the perfect solution to addressing that, it highlights some of the key questions and considerations that need to be embedded within decision-making across government.

Tim Molesworth is the Senior Advisor for Conflict Sensitivity and Peace Technology at the Peaceful Change initiative, a UK based peacebuilding NGO. He has 11 years’ experience working with the UN and NGOs in contexts such as Iraq, Syria, Sudan and Libya on strategic approaches to peacebuilding and conflict sensitivity.

Adam Hug became the Director of the Foreign Policy Centre in November 2017, overseeing the FPC’s operations and strategic direction. He had previously been the Policy Director at the Foreign Policy Centre from 2008-2017. His research focuses on human rights and governance issues particularly in the former Soviet Union. He also writes on UK foreign policy and EU issues. He studied Geography at the University of Edinburgh as an undergraduate and Development Studies with Special Reference to Central Asia as a post-grad.

[1] Cabinet Office, Global Britain in a Competitive Age: the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, Gov.uk, March 2021, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/global-britain-in-a-competitive-age-the-integrated-review-of-security-defence-development-and-foreign-policy

[2] See for example: the Fragile States Index, https://fragilestatesindex.org; the OECD iLibrary, States of Fragility 2020, https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/development/states-of-fragility-2020_ba7c22e7-en; the 2021 Global Peace Index, Overall GPI Score, https://www.visionofhumanity.org/maps/#/; and the World Bank, Brief: Classification of Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations, https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/fragilityconflictviolence/brief/harmonized-list-of-fragile-situations

[3] Therése Pettersson, Stina Högbladh, Magnus Öberg, Organized violence, 1989–2018 and peace agreements, Journal of Peace Research, June 2019, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022343319856046

[4] Júlia Palik, Siri Aas Rustad & Fredrik Methi, Conflict Trends: A Global Overview, 1946–2019, PRIO, 2020, https://www.prio.org/publications/12442

[5] OECD, Official Development Assistance (ODA), ODA 2020 preliminary data, https://www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainable-development/development-finance-standards/official-development-assistance.htm

[6] Cabinet Office, Global Britain in a Competitive Age: the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, Gov.uk, March 2021, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/global-britain-in-a-competitive-age-the-integrated-review-of-security-defence-development-and-foreign-policy

[7] The Global Goals for Sustainable Development, 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, https://www.globalgoals.org/16-peace-justice-and-strong-institutions

[8] United Nations and World Bank. 2018. Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict. Washington, DC: World Bank, pp25-33.

[9] Institute for Economics & Peace, Economic Value of Peace 2021: Measuring the global economic impact
of violence and conflict, January 2021, https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/EVP-2021-web-1.pdf; UN and World Bank, Op. cit., pp33.

[10] FCDO, Statistics on International Development: Final Aid Spend 2019, September 2020, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statistics-on-international-development-final-uk-aid-spend-2019

[11] UNOCHA, Global Humanitarian Needs Overview 2021, https://gho.unocha.org; In 2015, 97 per cent of humanitarian assistance targeted complex emergencies, “a humanitarian crisis in a country, region or society where there is total or considerable breakdown of authority resulting from internal or external conflict…’. See: UNOCHA. 2016. World Humanitarian Data and Trends 2016. New York: UNOCHA.

[12] United Nations and World Bank. 2018. Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict. Washington, DC: World Bank.

[13] For example of the UK-Canada partnership operating in response to a conflict see: FCDO and The Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP, Nagorno-Karabakh: UK and Canada joint statement in response to continued military clashes, Gov.uk, October 2020,https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nagorno-karabakh-uk-and-canada-joint-statement-in-response-to-continued-military-clashes

[14] FCO and The Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP, UK announces first sanctions under new global human rights regime, Gov.uk, July 2020, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-announces-first-sanctions-under-new-global-human-rights-regime

[15] FPC, Finding Britain’s role in a changing world programme, https://fpc.org.uk/programmes/finding-britains-role-in-the-world/

[16] Through involvement in the private roundtables that preceded this publication.

[17] Dispute resolution: as part of a more effective and focused approach to addressing conflict and instability through prevention’.

[18] Albeit one that has been impacted by the pressure of cuts to foreign service personnel, the tendency for other parts of Whitehall to cease control of parts of the machinery and more recently be the impact of aid cuts.

[19] The impacts of the UK’s cuts in aid spending in 2020 due to COVID-19, which saw an approximately 60 per cent reduction in real terms from the previous year, are yet to be seen. Also yet to be seen is the degree to which aid spending will recover post-COVID, though the Government has indicated a return to 0.7 per cent GDP spending on aid ‘as soon as possible’.

[20] Department for International Trade, UK trade agreements with non-EU countries, Gov.uk, January 2020, https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-trade-agreements-with-non-eu-countries#trade-agreements-in-effect

[21] The UK consistently rates highly in soft-power indices, such as the Global Soft Power Index (3rd in 2021), see: https://brandirectory.com/globalsoftpower/; or the Soft Power 30 (2^nd in 2021), see: https://softpower30.com/

[22] Both the challenges and opportunities were addressed in: Protecting the UK’s ability to defend its values, FPC, September 2020, https://fpc.org.uk/publications/protecting-the-uks-ability-to-defend-its-values/

[23] Raised at the expert workshops conducted as part of this project.

[24] Edited by Adam Hug and Devin O’Shaughnessy, Global Britain for an open world?, FPC, October 2021, https://fpc.org.uk/publications/global-britain-for-an-open-world/

[25] Abuja and Enugu, How kidnappers, zealots and rebels are making Nigeria ungovernable, The Economist, October 2021, https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/how-kidnappers-zealots-and-rebels-are-making-nigeria-ungovernable/21805737

[26] Stabilisation Unit, Elite Bargains and Political Deals, Gov.uk, June 2018, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/elite-bargains-and-political-deals

[27] See, for example, Conflict Sensitivity Consortium, How to guide to conflict sensitivity, February 2012, https://gsdrc.org/document-library/how-to-guide-to-conflict-sensitivity/

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