The World Today

August & September 2004: August/September 2004

Afghanistan, Iraq and the US-led ‘war’ on international terrorism are at different critical phases, but the fates of all three are now interlocked.

Articles

Is it time to think the unthinkable on Afghanistan and Iraq? What if either or both became failed states, would NATO and the Atlantic alliance survive the shock? This is not just the worry of maverick doom-mongers, but that of NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in a recent New York Times interview. He reportedly called for cooperation to save the two countries and criticised Washington for abandoning his organisation.

There is a troubling similarity between Iraq and the war in Vietnam. As in the 1960s an American president, relying on the ill-informed counsel of a small group of unaccountable and un-elected advisers, has overestimated the value of sheer military power and ﬁnds himself a prisoner of events beyond his control.

There are several ways of thinking about American presidential elections: as a monstrous waste of money fought by two rich party machines to decide who will run the country in the best interests of the corporations – the Noam Chomsky view; as a power struggle engaged in by inﬂated egoists with few principles and even fewer ideas – the line promoted by journalists late at night; as a contest so unimportant and so far removed from the lives of ordinary people that it is hardly surprising that fewer and fewer ever bother to vote – the cynic’s perspective; or as a sign of real political vitality in one of the largest and undoubtedly the best democracy in the world – the view adopted by most Americans.

Allies At War: America, Europe, and the Crisis over Iraq by Philip H. Gordon and Jeremy Shapiro (McGraw-Hill, 226 pages)

Terrorists do not limit themselves to traditional means of communication; they increasingly employ new media.

A High-Level Panel is reporting to the UN Secretary-General before the end of the year on ‘Threats, Challenges and Change’. One of its members, João Clemente Baena Soares of Brazil, sets the prospects in perspective.

Also in this issue

Europe needs dramatic changes in its policy towards immigration. Free and complete internal immigration from the new member states should be accelerated, and a common European approach should replace the current closed-door policy. The emphasis on ﬁghting illegal immigration through border controls is likely to be ﬂawed, and only a pan-European policy has any chance of success.

Opportunities too good to miss beckon in newly accessible nations: an attractive prospect for many, especially from former Soviet states. But there can be a catch: criminal gangs have discovered there is more money to be made in trading people than drugs.

Yet again it is decision time in the relationship between Turkey and the European Union, one that goes as far back as 1963 when an association agreement was signed. The Union accepted Ankara as a membership candidate in 1999, having refused to do so only two years before. Yet Turkey is the only candidate country that has not begun accession negotiations. In December, member states, sticking to their own deadline set last year, will have to decide whether to agree a date for talks. They would be ill advised to ignore Turkey’s knock on the door.

Indonesia’s ﬁrst direct-vote presidential elections look almost certain to deliver victory for the reformist former General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. With a clear lead over current President Megawati Sukarnoputri in the July ﬁrst round, SBY, as he is known to his supporters, is on course to become Indonesia’s sixth president. Dubbed the thinking general, he has staked his presidential bid on a tough anti-corruption campaign, a new approach to the separatist wars in Aceh and West Papua, and thoroughgoing reform of the bureaucracy. Such promises have been heard aplenty in the turbulent years since the fall of Suharto’s New Order in May 1998, but this time there might just be the chance for change.

Nearly ten thousand people have lost their lives during a nine-year insurgency in Nepal. Human rights violations are at an all-time high. The national economy has been completely derailed, with sky-rocketing poverty and mass unemployment leading to huge disillusionment among the general public. Many are now debating whether Nepal is already a failed state or is fast becoming one.

Few of the European holidaymakers seeking winter sun in The Gambia can be aware that West Africa’s longest-running civil conﬂict rumbles on just a few kilometres south of the tourist beaches. Across the border in Casamance – Senegal’s southern limb, largely separated from the rest of the country by The Gambia – the conﬂict is in its twenty-second year. At a time when protracted civil wars elsewhere in Africa have reached some sort of conclusion – in Sudan, except for ongoing strife in Darfur, and Angola – why does the Casamance conﬂict continue in a country that sees itself as a model democracy?