Dr Patricia Lewis
My name is Patricia Lewis. I’m the Research Director for International Security here at Chatham House. It’s my great pleasure to welcome back Rob Malley, who is the President and CEO of International Crisis Group, and, just now, can we say, annual fixture on Ten Conflicts to Watch, for the year coming, in 2019? Always a little controversial, what you put in, what you leave out, there’s only ten, there’s a big world out there, and, you know, as you say, it’s a fairly bleak world, at the moment. So, a few house rules. This is not under the Chatham House Rule, this is on the record. We’re being livestreamed. So, would people please switch their phones to silent? It would be really helpful. We’re going to speak for a little while, and then I’m going to go out to the floor for questions, and if you get selected to ask a question, I’d really appreciate it if you could say who you are, and, if you have an affiliation, what that is, that would be great. And, we’ll close just around 7:00. So, we haven’t got a lot of time, Rob, but, Rob, you do paint a bleak picture, yeah, a world with fewer rules. US power, that used to set the limits, now, sort of, absenting itself from doing that, and, actually, perhaps, even worse, starting to dismantle international law, international treaties, pullback, and leave a vacuum for others to fill. I mean, what’s going on? How are you characterising it, and how did you select these ten conflicts?
Robert Malley
So, first, thank you, it’s a great tradition, and I really enjoy it, and it’s always great to see so many people. I assume this is Brexit fatigue, people want to talk about anything but, so…
Dr Patricia Lewis
You just mentioned it, we…
Robert Malley
I did, I know. I know, I had to mention it, get it out of my system. So, I’ll say a few things about this. It’s bleak. It’s true that the US is in a – is a example, perhaps the most striking example, of this move away from the, you know, the order of the past. Now, I’ll come back to that in a second, dismantling treaties, walking away from treaties that are just agreed to, like the Iran nuclear deal, but now the INF, and the trade deal, and questioning things like NATO, but also questioning systems of international countability, like the ICC, and, from a domestic point of view, questioning a lot of the traditional ways of governing in the US. I want to put an asterisk, which is a big asterisk in the piece. I think it’s not as if the US dominated order was a, you know, an exhilaratingly positive order for many people around the world. So, I think we have to be careful in not, as we say, being too positive in our nostalgia, and nostalgia can be quite misleading for many people around the world, in the Global South. In particular, the era of US/Western dominance is associated with mass atrocities, mass killings, and many things that people are not going to miss.
The problem we have now is that we’re moving from a world which was familiar, if very unsatisfactory. We’re in this transitional period where rules are being thrown overboard, and therefore, where different countries are scrambling for influence, for power, for resources, where within countries there’s also a questioning of old rules. I mean, we’re seeing it with Brexit, I’m saying it again, we see it in the United States, we’re seeing it in Europe, with the rise of populism, we’re seeing it in Brazil, we’re seeing it in – you know, throughout the world we’re seeing a questioning of the order. And what this reflects is the fact that I think it is true that both the international system and its institutions, and domestic systems and institutions, have not delivered, or not delivered in a way that people, whether it’s – and by people I – individuals or states, have found satisfactory, and so there’s a contestation of the order at the different levels. It’s almost as, you know, like a Russian doll, there’s a changing of the guard at the international level, at the regional level, and domestic level, and all of it is happening at the same time, and as I write in the piece, we’re going from something that was unsatisfactory but familiar to an unknown, and in that transitional period, I think we’re seeing more and more scramble for power, scramble for influence, conflicts, and uncertainty, because there’s no rules, there’s no more guardrails. It’s unclear what comes next.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Rob, you were in the Obama administration, and you were in Crisis Group and the Obama administration in Crisis Group.
Robert Malley
Yeah.
Dr Patricia Lewis
When you joined the Obama administration, prior to that we’d had the George W Bush Administration, which did all of this, right? It unravelled treaties, we had the ABM Treaty, pull out, we had the biological weapons strengthening process, pull out, we had the war in Iraq during Bush, Afghanistan, we have got the terrible atrocity of 9/11. It was a very turbulent period, where, you know, countless numbers of people died as a result of wars created throughout this tenure. And then we had the Obama period, and now we’re – are we not – is this not a Back to the Future type of thing that’s going on? Should we get some – you said the – sort of the deceptive nostalgia, there is this sense that we got through it, so it was all okay, really. And are we just going to say that again at the end of this period, do you think?
Robert Malley
So, I think every era is turbulent, but every era is turbulent in its own way, and the turbulence we’re living through now, I think there’s something different, not necess – it’s not – so now it’s not necessarily going to be worse. We were just discussing, in some ways, the war in Iraq still outstrips and outweighs anything that President Trump has done, in terms of the damage it did to the international system, to the victims of the war, and to the United States’ reputation in the world. So, it’s – we’re still living, I think, in the aftershock of that, but there is something different, which it’s hard to put your finger on. It looks like an order which has been slowly changing. I would say, by the way, in terms of the US role in the world, the invasion of Iraq marks a turning point, where there’s much more questioning of the US. It, itself, has begun retreating, in some ways, and that’s an overstatement, but since then, questioning in the US over the overextension of the US role.
So, I think that’s, kind of, the starting point, but something has happened, I think it is undeniable, when you see what’s happening, in this country, in the United States, in France, in Brazil, in Hungary and Poland. There’s a sense of a world that is changing, that is shifting, China rising, the US in relative decline, and just a sense of uncertainty about what role different countries are going to play. The fact that we can even ask ourselves whether it’s going to happen or not, whether the US will withdraw from NATO, that’s of a different magnitude than what George W Bush did, and I was not a fan of that administration, but there’s a questioning, now, of basic, you know, who are the allies, who are not, you know, who is the US allied with, who is it going to do favours to? I mean, those things are new, and they’re causing a damage of a different sort, and it’s a damage that is much more uncertain, I think, even in the George W Bush administration. There’s one common thread between the two, John Bolton, who, obviously, was a – not a great fan of multilateral treaties under George W Bush, and he now has a position of even greater influence under President Trump.
Dr Patricia Lewis
But not necessarily completely aligned with President Trump’s views? I mean, he’s…
Robert Malley
I think it’s – I mean, one of the really fascinating sub-plots is that I look at President Trump as – there are three dimensions. There is instincts, and the best barometer of or guide of where he’s going to go is trust his instincts, what he says, what he, sort of – what his whole life has been about, and then you could, sort of, guess his antipathy towards Europe, towards NATO, towards treaties. Then there’s his policy pronouncements, and it’s much harder to decipher those because they seem to vary day-by-day. And then there’s the implementation, and there’s a real disconnect, because the implementors of his policy are not aligned with his instincts. We saw that – seen that in Syria, just the other day, I think we’ll see it in Afghanistan, we may see it in some of the other instances that you talk about. It’s a – which makes this administration even more difficult to grasp, and some people have commented, when we say the ten crises to watch, the US Administration could have been number one, but then again, it sort of is the common theme in most of the conflicts that we talk about.
Dr Patricia Lewis
But you mention in this that, you know, President Trump isn’t, by any means, the worst of these so-called strongmen.
Robert Malley
No.
Dr Patricia Lewis
There are many others that would contend for that accolade.
Robert Malley
Sure.
Dr Patricia Lewis
And you talk about Russia, you talk about Saudi Arabia. Do you want to take us through some of the influences that we’re seeing that are affecting these ten conflicts that we need to be watching?
Robert Malley
I think, and this is part of, I think, what’s happening, and I don’t – be very careful not, as I said, painting too rosy a picture of the past, but there is a sense that when there are no rules, you can’t really break them, and when there are no limits, you don’t know where to stop. And I think, obviously, if you look at what’s happened in – with Saudi Arabia, with Mohammed bin Salman, and some of his policies, which, I think, have not been resisted, and he keeps going, but he’s not the only one, of course. You have President Putin, you have a number of leaders around the world who, sensing that, again, there is this relative vacuum – I would call it more fluidity than a vacuum. There’s a sense of uncertainty about who is going to be – how the – what the new rules are going to be, and so you test them, and when you see there’s no resistance, you test them again and again and again and so, I think that is a theme, again, that runs across many of these conflicts. They are not necessarily more deadly, or worse, but is a sense where people simply don’t know how far they can go because they don’t know when they’re going to be stopped.
Dr Patricia Lewis
But that’s like children and adolescents, you know, testing out the rules, seeing how far they can go. Surely…
Robert Malley
You’re talking about your children, not mine, I’m sure.
Dr Patricia Lewis
I’m being livestreamed, I’m in trouble. But it – you know, surely we should expect more from our leaders? We should expect them to understand where these limits are. We should expect them to understand how, you know, they – what their role is, what – how they need to prevent conflict, how they – what leadership is really all about, and we’re not getting that at the moment.
Robert Malley
That’s quite a positive image of political leaders in general, let alone the current generation. I’m not sure that they view their role as doing that. They view their role as advancing what they perceive as their own interests, and when there’s, again, when there’s no resistance, you push further. I don’t think that that’s necessarily something that is surprising. I think what is damaging is that there’s no – the institutions that were supposed to, very imperfectly, regulate this are either discredited – I mean, let’s be honest, the UN Security Council is an anachronism. I mean, why do those five members have veto power? It’s an anachronism that no longer reflects today’s power relations, and the powers who are not represented on the Security Council know it.
So, there is that sense that, okay, the – we need to – we’re going to have to invent new rules, new multilateral institutions, or reform the ones that exist, but until that happens, it’s not at all surprising that leaders are going to try to take advantage of the lack of enforcement, lack of accountability of impunity, worldwide and domestically. And again, we’re seeing that in, you know, say, our own organisation has been a victim of one of these cases where, you know, countries think, “We could – we’ll do what we can do if we can get away with it.” One of our employees is now detained in China, it’s been 36 or 37 days. You know, a victim of a much bigger plot, but he’s just one of many others, I mean, who, today, are being detained, or being – or, in one case that we know well, Jamal Khashoggi, killed. There’s no pushback, there’s no reason why that won’t continue.
Dr Patricia Lewis
I’ve just seen the death today, in Ghana…
Robert Malley
Yes.
Dr Patricia Lewis
…of a journalist, who’s done a lot of undercover work.
Robert Malley
Right.
Dr Patricia Lewis
One of the things that you, sort of, signal, and provide a warning about, in the report, is how this may well lead, and indeed, historically, has led to miscalculation.
Robert Malley
Yeah.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Misinterpretation of these lines, misinterpretation for how far you can go, and miscalculation, then, and that can lead to some really dangerous situations.
Robert Malley
And these situations, that’s always the biggest danger, and I’ll take one case, which we write about, which is, sort of, that triangle, or square, Iran, Israel, the US, Saudi Arabia. There are no rules about who can do what, where, when. There’s no channel of communication between Iran-the United States, Iran-Israel, or Iran-Saudi Arabia, no meaningful channel of communication, and each sign is prodding in no sign – no side, and, again, this is a characteristic of worlds in transition. No side wants to show weakness, because it invites more pressure. So, Iran doesn’t want to show that it’s too weak, Israel, the United States, Saudi Arabia. So, each one is going to take a step to show that it is not afraid of what the response will be.
At some point it might provoke a response that it didn’t intended, and so, at this point, Israel has been able to, and now vocally, openly, go after Iranian assets in Syria, in a way that I must say most people would not have expected they could’ve gotten away with in the past. They have. At some point, are they going to go too far? Too far from an Iranian point of view, and Iran will retaliate. Same with Hezbollah in Lebanon, same with what’s happening now in Yemen between – and, you know, hopefully, the ceasefire, of sorts, around who did it will hold, but if it doesn’t, and if one of the Houthi drones or missile strikes hits a Saudi airbase, or a Saudi city, or an Emirati airbase or city, is there a response? Does a response hit Iran? If you don’t have diplomatic network apparatus, if you don’t have rules, if you don’t have channels of communication, all of which are missing today, the risk of miscalculation, of a war that is unintended, and of unforeseen consequences, rises exponentially.
Dr Patricia Lewis
And, indeed, last year we were talking about North Korea in this context.
Robert Malley
Yeah.
Dr Patricia Lewis
And, this year, do we feel better about North Korea? It’s not on your list.
Robert Malley
It’s not on our list. Last year, it was number one on our list, and this is one of the pushbacks that we get, and I’d say, you know, this is what’s interesting about North Korea. I, you know, as people know, I’m not been a huge fan of the Trump administration, and of President Trump. I do think he did the right thing, I think I said it last year, by engaging Kim Jong-un directly, and by engaging in direct diplomacy. I think that was the right thing to do, to try to de-escalate tensions and walk back from the brink. Of course, he was walking back from a brink that he had gotten to. So, you know, he de-escalated an escalatory situation that he created. I think the risk, now, about North Korea, and, again, we didn’t put it on our ten conflicts, is that, in some ways, President Trump has a bipolar way of doing things, it’s one extreme or the other. Either it’s absolute success with North Korea, which is the mode he’s in now, everything is working, things are great, I’m in love with Kim Jong-un, which is a, obviously, vast exaggeration, because there hasn’t been real progress toward denuclearisation. There’s been a freeze.
Dr Patricia Lewis
There’s a – there’s someone arriving today in Washington…
Robert Malley
Right.
Dr Patricia Lewis
…and a letter, apparently, so…
Robert Malley
And there will be another summit, and that’s good.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Yeah.
Robert Malley
But you know, the fear with President Trump is he has – the other mode he’ll have is not, sort of, a nuanced, sort of, sophisticated view of how do you deal with a country that’s not living up to your – to everything you want, but is doing some things? His other mode will be entirely negative. I think the fear that, in some quarters, and I understand it, is one morning he’ll go from saying, “What a great success with North Korea,” and the next day will be, without any transition, it’s one state or the other, and nothing in-between, “I tried my best, they disappointed me, and we’re going back to an escalatory rhetoric.” I don’t think we’ll go there, but I understand, to those who have chastised us or, sort of, criticised us for not putting North Korea on the risk – on the list, that is the danger is that President Trump is extolling this as a huge success, which we know it isn’t, even though it’s better than it was, and when he wakes up to the fact that it’s not a success and he can’t pretend it is anymore, does he then pivot to where some of his advisors may want him to go?
Dr Patricia Lewis
So, you know, you only deal with ten. Each year you give yourselves…
Robert Malley
Yeah.
Dr Patricia Lewis
…ten. So, there’s always one that’s not on there that should be on there. You’ve mentioned North Korea, what’s the other one, do you think?
Robert Malley
Well, and part of it is we’re looking well into the future and the other, you know, and we spoke about it earlier, DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo, obviously, today, is in the news. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be two, three months from now, but it – I’ll just tell you the kind of reaction we’ve gotten is, “Why is North Korea not on the list? Why is DRC not on the list? Why is Sudan not on the list?” There are obviously signs of instability there, and, “Why is Israel-Palestine?” which was not on the list last year, or this, and I feel particularly bad about that.
Dr Patricia Lewis
And you complained last year.
Robert Malley
I feel bad about it because of my own emotional…
Dr Patricia Lewis
Yeah.
Robert Malley
…attachment, but…
Dr Patricia Lewis
Yeah.
Robert Malley
…again, we have to make a selection, and if we covered everything, we’d be here for ten hours and it would be 100 conflicts to watch.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Yeah, exactly, and that’s always the problem, and then, you know, you lose interest. I think it’s a really interesting format, what you come up with, but it’s, in a way, it’s the ones that aren’t on, in a way, that you – that we probably need to throw out to our audience now, and we have many experts in the room who, I’m sure, have spotted the one that you haven’t included that you should’ve done. I’m very pleased that you’ve put Cameroon on. I’ve been very concerned about what’s going on in Cameroon for quite a while.
Okay, so I’m going to open up the floor now to questions, and any points people want to make. As I said, if you could please say who you are, and any affiliation that you might have, I’d be very grateful. So, does anybody want to take the floor at this stage? No, okay. So, you all agree that these are the ten conflicts. There’s someone at the back, there, if you could please go. Thank you.
Anil Scada
Anil Scada, I’m a Member of Chatham House. Mr Malley, where would you think the conflict in Kashmir, which is sandwiched between the nuclear power, India and Pakistan and alas, they’re not really very stable area, where would that part enter in this list?
Robert Malley
Shall we take a few?
Dr Patricia Lewis
Yes, let’s…
Robert Malley
Yeah.
Dr Patricia Lewis
…take a few together. There was one over here, on the – please, thank you.
Robert Fox
Sorry, my name’s Robert Fox, I’m a Member of Chatham House. I’m a journalist with the Evening Standard. But Dr Lewis, can I refer to your excellent performance on Radio 4 on Monday?
Dr Patricia Lewis
Oh dear.
Robert Fox
And I’m not – we all love lists, don’t we? I’m quite surprised how your list is confined by national or neo-national boundaries. My question is rather different. The scale of crises that we’re looking at, migration, climate change, refugees, and so on, are now such an order that we’re moving, in many, many cases, as a Doctor friend of mine working with refugees from Syria, in Jordan, put it, “We’re moving from the acute phase to the extended, chronic phrase – phase.” If you accept that, how do you manage the media agenda? The kind of thing that you were on, I know it was a serious programme, but they want a sound bite. They want – it has to be so dramatic and sensational, that the longue durée, the things that are really extended, now, you know, we get the compact on migration, 10th of December, 164 nations. How many headlines in the national and international papers, and in the international press, national-international press that you read about that?
Dr Patricia Lewis
That’s a very good point. I’d like to take one more question and I’d like the question to be from a woman, please, if that’s at all possible. So, we talked a lot about leadership, etc. Please can I – front row, thank you. Be good to have some other views on this, thank you.
Anita Punwani
Anita Punwani, Independent Risk Consultant. Just following on from the point that was made just now in terms of framing the crisis, and it being largely along national boundaries, the real challenges that we face around climate change, poverty, inequality, are global, international in nature, and where do you think we are, in terms of international co-operation, with the increase in populism and nationalism, and loss of trust in established institutions?
Dr Patricia Lewis
That’s a good selection, Rob…
Robert Malley
Yeah…
Dr Patricia Lewis
…so…
Robert Malley
…and, actually, a lot of these have to do with our methodology, so I’m going to have to say a word about that, and we’re in constant – you know, I’ve just been in this position for a year, we’re reviewing how we do our work, so that’s – we’ll answer some of this question. Now, the main question, and I’ll come back to Kashmir in a second, is some of these transnational threats, what I’d call chronic, you know, just as we have chronic pain, we have chronic crises that we live with. As a general matter, we at Crisis Group have, and it’s been our history for the past 25 years, we have been nation-state or nation-based, in terms of looking at crises within, you know, between nations, but that’s the order of – that we’ve looked at. We’ve evolved over time. There’s some more thematic issues that have arisen, or that we’ve focused on, whether it’s the problem with Jihadism, gender in conflict, economics of conflict. There’s some that we have looked at and tried to look what they mean globally, but our strength is that we have people on the ground who look at what’s happening in Cameroon, or what’s happening in DRC, what’s happening in Afghanistan, and that’s been our strength, and our value-added. Other organisations are better than we have been at looking at climate change in general, looking at – or migration of refugees.
I think we’re in the process of rethinking some of it, without losing our identity, and to start, again, I mentioned some. Climate change is one that we’re thinking about, dedicating ourselves more directly, but the truth is, we know where our value-added is, and we know where are strengths is, and the experts that we hire, regional experts. So, that’s – but it doesn’t mean that we’re not seeing, for example, climate change. If you look at our work on Nigeria, between the farmer-herder crisis, if you read what we write, a lot of it is directly related to climate change, and that’s true of many of the other conflicts that we look at. We’re going to make a more deliberate effort, now, to, sort of, tease that out, and perhaps even write about it more generally, but I do think the other question about how do you maintain attention to crisis that don’t make the headlines? I mean, that’s true, by the way, even of crises that are burning, but you mentioned Cameroon. It’s hard to mention – to get people to pay attention to Cameroon, when every day there’s another tweet that you have to care about, and every day there’s another crisis, like Brexit, or like today, you know, what happened yesterday in Syria.
So, it’s very hard to get people to focus on some of the ignored conflicts, which we try to put on our list, or in some of these chronic situations, and refugee are absolutely right. I mean, we’re living with the largest number of refugees and displaced people since the Second World War, and people care about it when it affects them directly. So, when they hit the shores, or when they – when there’s a crisis in Europe, or when – in Greece, or elsewhere, but, otherwise, the fact that you have, basically, another world, or entire countries with their own systems and their own non-systems, that’s something, I think, is a challenge for all organisations. How do you get poverty, inequality, how do you get these issues to keep – to maintain people’s attention? Again, we find it, even in the conflicts we cover, a number of them, people care about them when they hit the headlines, and sometimes the funding we get is just based on what’s the sexiest or latest conflict.
And we need to remind people a) that prevention is a better cure, or is better than resolution, or than cure, and that some of these things that may not hit the headlines are the real problems that we’re going to have to deal with, now and in the future. Kashmir, I have to be candid, it’s not something that we have covered. Again, we’re – we just have a new head of our Asia Programme, we’re rethinking it. It is one of those conflicts that, if it were to reignite in a very serious way, I mean, it’s always there, and there always are casualties, and it’s causing immense suffering, but if it were to reignite in a serious way, it would be cataclysmic. And so, it’s – but right now it’s, sort of, at that low boil, that we’ve been with for some time, but we are – I’m giving it some thought about whether that’s one of the conflicts that we currently don’t have a team covering it, but maybe we should.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Hmmm. I think one of the issues brought up, over the issue of press attention is that, you know, we’ve had – we get a lot of solutions to things, we have progress. The UN SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals, we have the Global Compact on migration, refugees. We’ve – there have been a number of treaties negotiated multilaterally. There are solutions, and yet, we’re not very good at celebrating those, informing people about them, letting them know how important they are, and the world can feel very, very bleak sometimes, when you read the headlines, and yet, there are people out there doing some amazing things to prevent conflict, and the SDGs are, perhaps, some of the most important developments, now, in conflict prevention, that we’ve ever seen, in terms of promoting human rights, for example, and Governments are taking them very seriously. And yet, you know, unless you’re in an organisation, or a job, that works on them, you probably don’t know very much about them. So, why is this? Why is it we’re not communicating these really positive developments, and perhaps thereby empowering people more?
Robert Malley
We’ll probably have to use Psychologists, not to understand what peoples tend to gravitate towards the more – sometimes the negative news are things that worry them more than the good news. I mean, there’s been so many – so much written about how there are some very positive trends in the world today, in terms of the number of people living in poverty, the number of people being educated. We tend – I think it’s human nature to look at the other side, because of, well, whatever reason. I also think it’s good to pay attention to the things that are not working, but my broader answer, and it also, I mean, I was planning to conclude on this, ‘cause I want to – I like to conclude on uplifting notes, and I’ll do it a bit sooner, I do think that we need to take a step back. Uncertainty means potential for change, but for positive change. Vacuum means potential for actors who have not been active in the past to step up and to play a role, instead of some of the great powers who may not have brought us entirely good news. Uncertainty means a possibility of a new certainty that is more positive.
So, I take from this fluidity, this period of fluidity, not only some of the bad news that we deliver, and we do deliver quite a bit, but also the sense that it is an opportunity for countries that have felt that their role was, by definition, marginalised, because the US or the West was going to dominate it, or – I mean, either that, or they felt, sometimes, that they didn’t have to step up, because, in any event, the US was going to take care of it, or others were going to take care of it, for better or worse. I think we’ve seen already, in the last few years, countries having to step up to save the Iran nuclear deal, to try to save the Paris Accord, to try to cha – save what they could of the trade agreement. We’ll see what they do with the INF, and other – are – is there – is this not an opportunity? Or to be more vocal on human rights. Human Rights Watch came out with its annual report today, and one of their themes is, yes, the US has stepped away from the UN Human Rights Council.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Germany, and stuff, yeah.
Robert Malley
But others are stepping up…
Dr Patricia Lewis
Yeah.
Robert Malley
…and there’s more activism. You know, that’s – change is worrisome, it’s concerning, and it does leave these vacuums, which we talk about, but from those, and for an organisation like ours, it means we can press regional actors, the African Union, others, to play a bigger part because they neither have the reality or the excuse of others who are crowding them out.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Okay. At the front row, please. Thank you.
Trisha de Borchgrave
Hi, my name’s Trisha de Borchgrave, and I’m a Writer and Artist. I want – and Chatham House Member, and I wanted to ask you, we’re talking about, sort of, broken systems that everyone’s trying to, sort of, reconfigure, and how do we do this best. But it seems that, on the domestic front, when there is this, sort of, domestic retrenchment when it comes to global crises, our, sort of, domestic, or national Politicians are finding it very difficult to govern, because there is a, sort of, two-tiered governance right now that they need to concentrate on. One is their domestic policies, and then you have the international side, and they’re both interlinked, but at the same time, they’re quite separate. How does a Politician negotiate that? How can they focus on both levels that way?
Dr Patricia Lewis
And the front row, here. Wait for the microphone, please, and introduce yourself. Thank you.
Sean Preston
Sorry.
Dr Patricia Lewis
And then at the back, at the…
Sean Preston
My name is Sean Preston, European Section, Chatham House. In your handout, you touched on it during your early part of your conversation, the disrespect for international institutions that were created for peacekeeping. Is this a general failure, or can the countries that want peace get together and re-organise it to be more effective and respected?
Dr Patricia Lewis
Thank you, and then, at the back, there’s a person. Yeah, navy jumper, thank you.
Connor Moylan
Hi, Connor Moylan, Member of Chatham House. I’m curious what you envisage the EU as a political entity, what role they may play in the future of international security?
Dr Patricia Lewis
The EU.
Robert Malley
So, the first question, I mean, it’s, say, I think you’re right in two levels. Number one, there is this constant interaction between the domestic and the international. By international, you know, an international system that is changing at the same time that domestic systems are changing. That’s what I meant by this Russian doll of a changing of the guard within a changing of the guard. One of the consequences, it’s not exactly what I think you’re referring to, but maybe, is I think the bandwidth of political leaders, in this country, in France, and others, is limited. They can’t – when I raise questions, as I have over the last few days, about DRC, or about Nigeria, where I just came back, and where very pivotal elections about – I came from, and pivotal elections are going to take place next month, they’re interested, but they say, “Frankly, at this point, we just can’t get anyone in our system to care about it.”
In the US, it’s a different matter, because it’s not that dissimilar, the top echelon cares about a few things. The people below them, the working level, are trying, and sometimes they could get things done, but they can’t get the attention of the national security around it, the Secretary of State, let alone the President. So, I think that’s a problem, and, it’s again, it goes through this issue about, you know, conflict resolution. I think a lot of these conflicts are going to get, you know, discarded, they’re going to be ignored, they’re going to be neglected, because people – unless it touches on one of two things: counter-terrorism, and there you could guarantee that there’ll be attention, and sometimes of the worst kind, or migration, if it affects the West. Those are the two, you know, prisms through which people will look at things, and if not, you know, maybe we could deal with this problem, if it’s not going to affect us directly, which does bring me to the question of whether there are alternatives, whether it’s, you know, more effective institutions.
Again, I think we’re in a transitional phase, so it’s going to be hard to get there, but that needs to be the goal, and the goal has to be to reflect on the failings of the system of the past. I think that’s true. Again, I think this is true at all levels. You know, I am not a populist, I don’t – I’m not at all enjoying seeing the rise of populism, or the rise of President Trump, and others like him, but we have to be honest, and recognise that it is a symptom of the failure of the order of the past, which simply did not deliver. Now, it then becomes distorted and used for all kinds of nefarious agendas, but, at its core, it is not only that. It starts from a sense of dissatisfaction, by the many, who feel the system is rigged for the few. I think that’s true of the international system as well, as I said earlier, whether it is the ICC, which is viewed by many African nations, the International Criminal Court, as being biased against them, because, clearly, the – you know, they’re not going to go after the Western powers, despite everything that they may have done in the past, and more recently. Whether it’s the World Trade Organisation, whether it’s any of these organisations are viewed as having been skewed, and whether it’s the whole concept of the Security Council, as I mentioned, and military operations.
You know, there’s not going to be a military operation to stop the US invasion of Iraq, or of Afghanistan. We’re never going to get to a system of complete equality, that’s not going to happen, but is there – are there alternatives that could remedy what has been viewed, at the national level, and at the regional and international levels, as unfair or ineffective systems? I don’t have a good answer, because, you know, it is a question of balance of power, but that’s the challenge, and that brings me to the EU, because the EU is in this interesting position where it does have, so far, up until now, a more value-inspired foreign policy than, say, the United States, still. And it may have the capacity to do certain things, and it does have an agenda that is more geared towards development, which is something that is, you know, losing steam in the US, towards peace and security. So, a more value-inspired, value-driven foreign policy.
The problem is that the EU is in a place in its history where the EU probably could play the most important role because of the vacuum, and has rarely been in so deep a crisis, and that dichotomy between an EU that is needed, but an EU that seems much more self-centred, because it has to deal with its own problems, problems with Brexit, but also problems with some of its members who are going in a very different direction, it is a – one of the tragic, I don’t know if it’s an irony, but one of the tragic conditions of the world today, which is the EU could be far more effective, and I think it is more needed at a time when it is deeply, deeply in crisis. And so, I – we started off a year ago, and really calling for the EU to play a greater role, and it has. I think, in the Iran nuclear deal, we came out with a report yesterday, marking year three of the Iran nuclear deal, and this is nothing short of a miracle that, thanks, in a large part, to what the EU has done, and around strategic patience for its own reasons that it’s managed to keep it alive, but, you know, it would be far better if the EU were in a far healthier place.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Hmmm, and we had President Trump today speaking, and in the speech he gave on missile defences and space about Iran, about its missiles, and about how he’d pulled them out of this disastrous deal. So, you know, that is, again, and it’s not over. I’m going to throw the question, though, back to you, at the back, who asked the question on the EU. What do you think the EU should be doing differently?
Connor Moylan
Well, I think, for starters, it should be trying to structurally reform. I think there’s a bit of an issue with the requirement of unanimity from the EU. I think we’re seeing China playing a very maligned role with some of the EU members states, and so I think changing from a, sort of, unanimous consensus required to a majoritarian consensus required on foreign policy issues, would be a fantastic place to start.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Thank you. Thanks very much. Right, anyone else to…?
Sean Preston
Can I just add to that?
Dr Patricia Lewis
Yeah. Can you wait for the microphone, ‘cause then people can’t hear us, unfortunately, on livestream, if you don’t wait, so, thank you.
Sean Preston
I think the weakness of the EU is poor communication between what is simplistically called ‘Brussels’ and the people in the different countries. We don’t see any of them and they don’t speak to us in the UK, and I suspect it’s the same elsewhere. I think they should put their false teeth back in and start talking to us.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Put your false teeth back in, and I think that’s a phrase we’re going to use. Yes, please, in the front row, thank you. I still need more women to lean in. Great, thank you, brilliant.
Andy Starr
Hi, good evening. Andy Starr, from the Royal College of Defence Studies. What do you see as the potential to thread the needle of China and America coming to a strategic accommodation in the long-term?
Dr Patricia Lewis
Hmmm. If you go to the front row, please, thank you.
Alexandra Brendlam
Good evening, Alexandra Brendlam, I’m a student at UCL, and I’m very interested in climate change and diplomacy, especially in a definition of a climate change refugee. We still don’t have a concrete definition, or an explanation what that actually is. So, could you maybe give – the climate change refugee. When will we actually have a concrete definition? When is it written down? Do we even need one? Do we need the certainty of who exactly climate change refugee is? Is the definition…?
Dr Patricia Lewis
Preparing for the impact of climate change on migration and refugees…
Alexandra Brendlam
Exactly.
Dr Patricia Lewis
…from impacted areas.
Alexandra Brendlam
Yes…
Dr Patricia Lewis
Really capturing it.
Member
…and really using that term, and having it backed up with something. Thank you.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Thank you, yeah, and there’s a hand up at the back there, please. Thank you.
Bertie Kerr
Thank you. Bertie Kerr, Albany Associates, good evening. Just late last year, Jeremy Hunt gave a speech about articulating Britain’s role in the world post-Brexit, and he touched on such soft power reserves that we can deploy to assist in these areas, such as protection of media freedoms. Could you, sort of, touch on that, tell us what you think about that, and what other effective soft power measures we have to deploy? And not just Britain, but those in the West.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Okay.
Robert Malley
So, China, the US, and it did – this is, at least in my experience, the first time that we’ve put – at least in my one-year – so, only two ten conflicts to watch, where we put, sort of, a geopolitical tension like China, the US, at almost the very top of our list, because it is, sort of, one of those tectonic shifts. China rising, which has been true for some time, economically, demographically, politically, diplomatically, and militarily, and we’re just seeing that it is gaining an influence and an ambition around the world, which is natural for a country of its size, and the US, which, again, is in relative decline, but is not – certainly not yet a second-rate power. It still outstrips China, in terms of its military capability, its economic, sort of, project – power, in many respects. So, in some ways, this is a diplomatic – or, it’s a competition that’s bound to happen, and the question is, how is it managed?
Right now, it appears that the focus has been on the trade issue, and I would not be surprised, because it is, I think, again, for all of the imperfections, and worse, of President Trump’s way of doing things, he seems to have hit – have been pressing the spot that is a vulnerability of China, and of Xi Jinping right now, which would lead one to think that they may well find a compromise on that score, because China just needs to stabilise that front to resume and to continue its economic growth, and to be able to provide for its people. So, I think you may see a temporary calming of the waters on that front, but the question is, does that then lead China to try to flex its muscles in other areas, because it needs to show that it’s not simply surrendering to the diktat from Washington? So, I think we have to – and that’s why we put it on the list, we have to expect, not necessarily, you know, a confrontation, which would be, again, of such cataclysmic consequence that it would make everything else pale, but I think we should expect more rough waters between the two.
And what is absolutely clear, and I don’t – I think it’s happening in Europe too, but at a slower pace than in the US, is a complete shift in the way of looking at China, the relationship with China. A few years ago, there was broad consensus in the US, whether one was more hard-line or more soft-line with China, there was a basic acceptance in the foreign policy community, that bringing China into the – more into the community of nations, and in the, sort of, the international system, economic system, allowing it to grow and to be more of a stakeholder, that was good for international peace and security, was good for China’s evolution. That may have been a bit naïve at the time, I don’t want to, you know, who knows, but it’s now, sort of, swung to the other extreme, where it is hard to find a Politician of – serious Politician in the US, or even foreign policy thinker, to a large extent, who doesn’t take the opposite view, that this was a scam, and in fact, China’s taking advantage of our – of the US desire and the West’s desire to bring it in, and they’re the enemy, and, you know, they’re the ones we have to squeeze, and it’s very – you know, the discourse, the pro-engagement discourse in China has shrunk and quite dramatically. I happen to think that’s not particularly healthy, because I think we have to find the right balance, and that’s, I think, the sense of your question. It’s going to be strategic competition, but the two are going to have to – and the West and China are going to have to find ways to co-exist, and to – and that’s going to be one of the bigger issues of this, sort of, new order that’s being settled, but…
Dr Patricia Lewis
You think in Europe has a role to play?
Robert Malley
Europe has a role to play. Europe is, sort of, in this strange, you know, it’s a strange world they’re in, because on the one hand, one would think this is a time where they would be closing ranks with the United States to try to redefine the relationship with China, but at the same time, the US is waging a trade war of sorts against Europe. So, it’s a bit – I mean, that’s an odd calculation by the US, and China. I mean, on the other side, China’s obviously, you know, trying to extend its hand to Europe, and actually, at some point, telling the Europeans, “Come with us, we’re more reliable, we’re more of the stakeholder in the world, we’re more rule-bound, and we believe in the international order, come to us rather than to the US.”
Dr Patricia Lewis
They believe in climate change.
Robert Malley
They believe in climate change, and yet, their behaviour on other fronts is obviously, whether it’s trade, incidental property, or, I would, you know, selfishly add, or not selfishly, but I would add appropriately, the arrest – arbitrary arrest of citizens in China. That is certainly a very different message, and I don’t think what my read of the mood in Europe, it is not…
Dr Patricia Lewis
Yeah.
Robert Malley
…“Let’s abandon the US and run to China.” So, both China and the US are acting in ways that are, sort of, counterproductive if their goal would be to bring the – Europe to their side. On your question of climate change, and refugee – climate change, refugees, I must admit, and this is, as I said, we have not really focused on this. I think it’s a great question. I don’t want to pretend that I could answer it, I don’t like to answer things that I’m not – I’ve not thought about. So, we are looking at the link between climate change, conflict, displacement, refugee, but I – but this is – I – next year when I come back, I hope to be able to answer you in a more informed way, but I’d love to hear more about that.
It’s not just, actually, Britain’s role in the world. I think we’re seeing more countries, and it’s, again, the point that I was making earlier, when it’s more of a vacuum, and when the country, that it set the norms, or wanted to set the norms in the past, the US is retreating, then questions like development, like democracy, like human rights, like gender and conflict, and you now have a number of countries, Canada and others that have a feminist foreign policy. All of this, obviously…
Dr Patricia Lewis
Sweden.
Robert Malley
…Sweden, anathema to the United States. I mean, this is exactly the kind of soft issues, that if you look at President Trump’s instincts, again, for me, the main barometer of where he’s going to go, he has real disdain for all of this. That’s why the European Union, for him, among other reasons, ‘cause he also doesn’t like the fact that others work as a collective, he likes to deal with countries transactionally, bilaterally, but also, the fact that it stands for, you know, human rights, and development, and feminist, to the extent some countries do. That is alien to him, but I think that gives an opening for these countries to stand up and to be heard. I think some of them have already done so. It’s, you know, again, it runs up against the point you were making, which is they also have to deal with the domestic politics ahead of time, and so they are very interested in commercial deals, which often, you know, and I can think of a few countries where they have been torn between their belief in some of these universal values, or values, I don’t need to call them universal, some of these values, and the fact that it could endanger some of their commercial dealings with countries in the Gulf, or China, or elsewhere. So, I think there is – this is a moment of real, you know, it’ll be a tug of war, countries that would like to play a bigger role on these issues, but who also face this real weight, this real imperative, of their domestic economies, their domestic politics, and picking a fight with certain countries over human rights, or the arrest of Journalists, media freedom, in the – in balance, it’s not clear which – that the values are going to win out.
Dr Patricia Lewis
So, we’ve got, I think, time, just for a few more questions. We’ve got one here, please, thank you. Just here. Thank you. If you want to put your hand up, I’ll try and catch you.
Melanie Hughes
Melanie Hughes, Chatham House Member. I just wondered if you’d like to comment on the, kind of, Russian infiltration into Europe, especially in the Balkans, and their rapport with right-wing parties. What do you think of that?
Dr Patricia Lewis
Thank you. There’s a young woman back there.
Sophie Kippen
Thank you. Sophie Kippen, I’m a Civil Servant. China recently proved that it’s got the capability to blow up one of its own satellites, and I was wondering whether you considered, or whether you think you will consider in the next year, conflicts that take place in the non-traditional domain, such as space?
Dr Patricia Lewis
And I think, then, this young gentleman, yes, thank you. And then the last one, here, okay.
Member
With increasing, sort of, competition and conflicting interests in global organisations, do you see domestic – not domestic, sorry, regional and continental organisations stepping up to, kind of, fill the void that, say, the UN or the WTO are, sort of, failing to close?
Dr Patricia Lewis
Thank you, and final question.
Claude Sinet
Yes, my name is Claude Sinet, I’m from the Canadian High Commission, and I’m just wondering if you’ve been able to look more closely at where we stand now after this last year, with respect to counter-proliferation efforts and, sort of, no clear treaty. What’s been happening on chemical weapons and global efforts, including in The Hague as well?
Dr Patricia Lewis
Thank you.
Robert Malley
Okay. Now, okay, let me start with Russia. So, I’m generally not, even though I did most of my work in the Middle East, I’m not conspiracy minded, and so I always am a little bit sceptical when people say that some country’s pulling the strings everywhere. So, I don’t want to go into that extreme when it comes to Russia. I don’t view it that way. I think it’s giving them, in some ways, too much credit, sometimes, too much discredit, but too much credit, in terms of them being the master puppeteers. I think it’s a – Russia’s been a power in decline, and that is acting with the opportunism and the aggressiveness that countries in decline, or feeling they’re declining, wanting to halt it, do. In some ways, it’s the mirror image of China, which is a country in ascent that has tried to act more cautiously, and I think – up until now, and I think Russia is, kind of, the reverse, and they’ve been very good at it. I mean, we have to give them that credit, that in terms of their – being opportunistic, seeing weaknesses in certain systems, playing on those, I think their role has been exaggerated.
I am – I do believe that, but they have been effective in a number of theatres, and it’s a, you know, it’s something that we have to take into account. Obviously, Ukraine, which is on our list, the way they are, even today, undermining President Poroshenko, and what they did in the Sea of Azov. That’s part of a, you know, calculated effort to try to get – to weaken those who they don’t – who they view are not rowing in the same direction, and trying to help forces, general forces, who they think – which I think will be more in their favour, the more populist forces, or the more pro-Russian forces, but again, I think I want to strike a balance. You know, I’m old enough to remember the days, which are not that old, where everyone thought the US was pulling every string, everywhere, and I was in the US Government, and I could tell you we’re not that good.
So, I don’t want to now go into that other extreme of thinking that the Russians are deciding, you know, they’re responsible for Brexit, they’re responsible for President Trump’s election, they’re responsible for the rise of Five Star Movements and the extreme right in Italy. I think we have to, sort of, be a bit more measured about that, but be aware of the fact that they are being effective, just as, by the way, and they would say this, they’d say, “Well, it’s not as if the US wasn’t – hadn’t intervened historically in a number of countries.” So, they think that this is just giving back what they received.
Regional organisations stepping up, absolutely. I mean, that is – whether it’s going to happen, I don’t know. Whether it should happen, that’s the point that I was making about the EU. I think the EU is an interesting example. They have their flaws and their weaknesses, and, you know, their effectiveness is now being tested, in terms of how they’re going to react, for example, to what happened in DRC, but it is an organisation where there seems to be somewhat of a collective spirit, as opposed to some other regional organisations I could think of, but I think that it’s really a challenge. It is a test. Again, I am old enough to remember when a number of these countries, and the Europeans in particular, but also others, were complaining that the US wanted to monopolise all these efforts, and it was a, sort of, we play, you pay, vis-á-vis the Europeans, and vis-á-vis others crowding them out. So, now that the US is not playing that role, now is the time for these regional organisations to try to see whether they can do it, but, of course, to do that they’re going to have to overcome internal divisions, which are made all the more acute by, again, the fact that at a time when these countries are dealing with internal domestic unrest, that’s going to be their priority, and they’re going to put that forward.
And we haven’t spoken that much about Africa, but the theme of Africa for the past year and the coming year is going to be these battles over transition, and contestation of rules that have been in power for a very long time. We could think of Sudan, DRC, what’s happening in Togo, what, you know – these are, in all these cases, what we’re seeing are battles between orders that are being challenged by their publics, and the public that is, you know, the public that is rising up, and the regimes that are trying to find different ways to stay in power. You know, changing the constitution, to extend their mandate, or finding other ways, rigging elections, or whatnot. And so, how do you get regional organisations to speak as one, and to act as one, when their member states are in the grips of real domestic challenges? That’s a huge problem. Finally, on – what I’m going to, sort of, put as – in one basket, question about counter-proliferation, questions about non-traditional conflicts…
Dr Patricia Lewis
Space.
Robert Malley
…space, I – you know, I can see my staff here both know that they’re trembling fear, because they think I’m going to come out of this and say, “Okay, now we got to work, also, on counter-proliferation, cyber, artificial intelligence, satellites.”
Dr Patricia Lewis
We do all that, we can just do…
Robert Malley
Good. Maybe we’ll ask you to do it for us, but it is – we are, as I say, in the midst of thinking about what are conflicts going to look like tomorrow? They’re not going to look like the ones they’ve looked like today, for all kinds of reasons, and in particular because of cyber warfare. Drone warfare is already one way in which conflict has changed dramatically, and in some ways, you know, in some ways for the good, because we can be more precise in your targeting. In some ways also for the good, in terms of those who are perpetrating, or who are behind the drone, because they don’t expose their personnel to as much danger, but it has added a cost by making war cheaper, and, you know, some countries now can wage war without exposing their personnel to any danger, and so the – what had been one of the factors that has restrained – you know, if I look at the United States, Vietnam, Iraq, when I saw the body bags coming back, which was a real, obviously, that was an absolute tragedy, but that mobilised people back home to say, “We need to stop these wars, because it’s also affecting our people. It’s affecting the people there much more, but also affecting our people.”
The more war becomes distant, the more it becomes impersonal, in terms of those waging it, where’s going to – where’s, you know, where’s the counterweight going to come, and there’s – so, we have to think about artificial intelligence, drone warfare, cyber war in a very different way. It’s going to make war, in some ways, less costly, in some ways, easier to wage, because less costly to the perpetrator, and yet – and the victims become invisible, and then we have the problem, how do we deal with chronic issues where you don’t, you know, the West and those, or those who are in charge don’t really see the cost of their actions? So, it’s a whole nexus of issues that, as I say, my team is going to be extremely worried about if we try to cover all of them, but we are going to have to think ahead about what war’s going to look like, who’s going to wage it, in order to achieve what, and what are the – what are going to be the – how – what’s going to be the counterweight, if people feel like they could engage in cyber warfare and in artificial, you know, war through artificial intelligence, in ways that they – that don’t have rules today, there are no rules that are governing those? Even, you know, whatever rules exist, the non-proliferation rules about use of chemical weapons, use of biological weapons, use of nuclear weapons, there is virtually nothing when it comes to this new age that we’re entering into. We may not be the ones to do it. You may – maybe you’ll do it, but it’s going to affect the work that we do every day in every country.
Dr Patricia Lewis
Hmmm. Rob, thank you very much, but, before you go, you know, one of the purposes of this report that’s done every year is to raise awareness, is to get people talking, which I hope we’ve done a bit tonight, but it’s also, I think, to have an impact, somehow, and, you know, when you put an issue like Cameroon on the Ten Conflicts to watch, does this have an impact? Does this make a difference? Does it get them, sort of, bumped up in the Security Council? What’s your wish for this report? What is it you hope will happen, as a result of people reading what is, you know, a really important set of conflicts to watch for 2019?
Robert Malley
So, all of the above. I mean, it really is an awareness raiser, and we have different ways of doing it. For some reason, lists are very popular, you know? People really like lists. So, it is one of our most read items, and I think it does have an impact. I mean, we, you know, we have a presentation in Brussels on this, I know we have one in the US. It does put issues that people either are not caring about, or are not caring about in the way that we would like them to care about, on the agenda, whether it’s at the Security Council, whether it’s Governments who keep asking us, “Well, what should we think about over the coming year?” ‘cause they are crowded out by the immediate, and so we’re trying to tell them what is urgent. We’re telling these what’s important you need to look at, and of course the main benefit is that I get invited here every year, and I’m grateful for that, and thank you very much.
Dr Patricia Lewis
That was the right answer. So, thank you very much, thanks to all of you. Thank you [applause].
