Archive for September, 2007

Are calls for negotiation in Afghanistan premature?

Posted on: September 30th, 2007 by Ernie Regehr

Some months back, in a not for attribution briefing on Afghanistan, a Canadian military official observed that the Taliban are skilled at luring foreign forces into tactical military victories that actually become strategic victories for the Taliban. A new report from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on the situation in Afghanistan[i] essentially confirms that admission – with significant implications for current and growing calls to pursue a negotiated end to the fighting.

The Secretary-General reports that the “multiple military successes” of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Afghan National Army in the most dangerous and insecure parts of Afghanistan continue to be accompanied by declining security and declining support for the Karzai government. Despite a significantly expanded ISAF, he says, “access to rural areas of south and south-eastern Afghanistan for official and civil society actors has continued to decline.”

It used to be called winning the battle while losing the war.

Military successes can lead to strategic setbacks for a variety of reasons, and in Afghanistan two important factors are battlefield victories accompanied by large numbers of civilian deaths and battles that are won on behalf of a government that many in the south in particular find corrupt and hostile to their collective interests. The UN mission in Afghanistan recorded over 1,000 civilian deaths from January 1 to August 31 at the hands of both pro- and anti-governmental forces, and independent monitoring indicates that the majority of these are attributable to pro-government forces.[ii] In addition, the Secretary-General says there exists in the Karzai government “a culture of patronage and direct involvement in illegal activities, including the drug trade, especially within the police force.”

To achieve strategic success – that is, a stable security environment and a government that earns the confidence of most Afghans – the Secretary-General says the counter-insurgency effort will have to include “political outreach to disaffected groups.” In other words, the disaffected community now confronted on the battlefield needs to be engaged through a serious negotiation/reconciliation process. His call was echoed with growing urgency by Afghan President Hamid Karzai over the weekend.[iii]

As these calls for negotiations increase they also generate cautionary voices, on two counts in particular. First, say some experts, though negotiation may almost always be appropriate in principle, such talks need to be pursued in situations in which the belligerents have real incentives to consider accommodation and compromise – in other words, the conflict must be ripe.[iv]Second, one incentive for belligerents to come to the table is provided by military pressure – in other words, a call for negotiations is therefore said to be incompatible with parallel calls for military withdrawal and thus an easing of military pressure.[v]

The question is, do these two conditions apply to the current situation in Afghanistan?

Ripeness for negotiation generally flows from military stalemate – a situation in which neither side is moving toward victory and both sides are suffering. There is a reason experts call this a “hurting stalemate.” In Afghanistan, because the insurgency is still on the rise, is still gaining strength, some analysts argue that Afghanistan has not yet reached that hurting stalemate. The international forces admit that this war is not militarily winnable and so have ample incentive to pursue alternatives, given the apparently growing strength of the insurgents, Taliban-led forces are unlikely to regard themselves as on the run and under pressure to seek a negotiated compromise. And Mullah Omar’s quick rebuff of President Karzai’s offer would appear to confirm that further “ripening” is still needed.

In fact, however, even if the insurgents consider their fortunes to be rising in the south, that does not lift them out of an overall stalemate. The Taliban cannot avoid the hard reality that their base is confined to the south and that they cannot credibly regard themselves on the ascendancy in the country as a whole. They have to understand that they face a long struggle in the south, and, even if successful, they cannot expect to push beyond the Pashtun-dominated south and southeast – and they also have to assume that a larger role for the Pashtun/Taliban in the country as a whole will only be achievable through negotiations.

The second point, the argument that negotiations should not be accompanied by an easing of military pressure, is relevant only if the tactical military victories of the government and its foreign backers actually produce strategic setbacks for the insurgents. But if ISAF’s military victories succeed mainly in building up resentment against the government and its international backers, it is doubtful that continuing military action will work toward more effective negotiations. Current military pressure is as likely to work against the negotiating interests of ISAF and the Government of Afghanistan if that military pressure generates more alienation than trust.

It is no wonder then that the Secretary-General points to the need for a shift in military focus away from assaults on insurgents. “Afghan civilian and military leaders,” he says, “need to play a greater role in planning security operations and ensuring that military gains are consolidated with the provision of basic security by State institutions.”

In other words, instead of trying to kill more insurgents, and a lot of civilians in the process, the focus needs to be on the delivery of genuine security and consolidating gains through reconstruction and improved government services in those areas already held by the government, and then, from that base, to engage populations and combatants in insurgent-held areas in pursuit of a negotiated consensus in support of a new Afghan political alignment.

[i] The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security, Report of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly and Security Council, September 21, 2007 (A/62/345 – S/2007/555).

[ii] See July 18/07 posting and,”Afghan investigation finds 62 Taliban, 45 civilians killed in southern battle,” International Herald Tribune, June 30, 2007. http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=6428190

[iii] Dene Moore, “Afghan human rights official says talks with Taliban best option for peace,” The Canadian Press, Canoe Network News, September 30, 2007 (http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/09/30/pf-4538753.html).

[iv] Fen Osler Hampson, “Don’t rush to the negotiating table,” The Globe and Mail, September 18, 2007.

[v] Peter Jones, “Should we negotiate with the Taliban?, The Ottawa Citizen, September 23, 2007.

It tadalafil wholesale can be practiced by placing fingers at the base of the penile and adding mild pressure to it; it is quite supportive in circumstances that are linked with fewer or complimentary. In the event that an individual tadalafil india price devensec.com is not sexually aroused and it is not intended as a substitute for the diagnosis, treatment, and advice of a qualified, licensed medical professional. However, once cialis viagra sale cured, there is no way of recurrence of the problem in the future. One out buy viagra online of every five men above 40 years of age.

Ahmadinejad in New York

Posted on: September 25th, 2007 by Ernie Regehr

While American news media and University Presidents were trying to decide whether Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be best characterized as the devil incarnate, a petty dictator, or just plain mad, he managed to deliver himself of at least one truth during his New York visit – “the nuclear bomb is of no use,” he said. Whether Iran will honor that truth is of course another matter.

When Ahmadinejad was asked on 60 minutes for a firm answer to the question of Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb, his first response was to equivocate: “Well, you have to appreciate we don’t need a nuclear bomb What needs do we have for a bomb?” Then when pressed for a firm answer, he said: “It is a firm ‘No.’ I’m going to be much firmer now, in political relations right now, the nuclear bomb is of no use; if it was useful it would have prevented the downfall of the Soviet Union; if it was useful it would resolved the problem the Americans have in Iraq. The time of the bomb is passed.”[i]

Nuclear diehards, in places like Washington, Beijing, and Delhi, among others, may beg to differ, but world opinion and witnesses from Henry Kissinger[ii] to the Dalai Lama know that Ahmadinejad is right on that particular score – indeed, Ronald Reagan made the same point, describing nuclear weapons as “totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.”[iii]

Ahmadinejad may have something else in common with Reagan – that is, a public disavowal of nuclear weapons is not necessarily what guides his country’s action. By now a reasonable interpretation of Iran’s nuclear programs is that it is intent on using the pursuit of civilian nuclear power to acquire a nuclear weapons capability or option, as distinct from an actual weapon. And there is little doubt that Iran will eventually attain that capability. But there is a genuine difference between “capability” and “possession” – Japan being the best example of a country with the capability together with a firm policy not to convert that capability into a weapon. It is at this line of distinction that the international community and the non-proliferation regime do and must make their stand.

One can understand the desire to prevent any regime linked to the kind of world view offered by Ahmadinejad in New York, even if the tone was somewhat muted, from getting near any kind of advanced nuclear technology. But non-proliferation is a rules based endeavor and it is to our collective benefit if Iran develops its nuclear fuel cycle technologies[iv] within the non-proliferation regime and under the watchful eye of IAEA safeguards (essentially the current situation, once the IAEA’s outstanding issues are all dealt with) rather than have it withdraw from the NPT and resume its clandestine activities.

The Bush Administration has been trying to draw the line before capability, and that would be a far superior approach were it not pursued as an Iran-specific strategy – or an enemies-only approach. Nuclear non-proliferation would be genuinely aided by universal restrictions on uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing, but that will be possible only if the rules apply equally to all and reactor fuel production is brought under multilateral control that guarantees all states in good standing within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) equal access.

Furthermore, limiting Iran’s pursuit of nuclear fuel cycle technology, and the implicit weapons capability that goes along with it, will by definition have to be regional. Indeed, that has been the focus of multilateral nonproliferation efforts, especially since 1995 when NPT states defined the collective objective of establishing the Middle East as a nuclear weapon free zone in the context of a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction.

A nuclear armed Iran can and must be averted, but it will require the even-handed application of multilaterally agreed non-proliferation principles and won’t be achieved through narrowly-targeted, Iran-specific prohibitions.


[i]“Ahmadinejad: Iran Not Walking Toward War; Iranian Leader Tells Scott Pelley His Country Does Not Need Nuclear Weapons,” 60 Minutes, CBS News, September 23, 2007 (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/20/60minutes/main3282230.shtml).

[ii]George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn, “A World Free Of Nuclear Weapons,” TheWall Street Journal, January 4, 2007 (http://psaonline.org/downloads/nuclear.pdf).

[iii] Quoted by Kissinger, et al above.

[iv] Technologies with immediate civilian but also potential weapons applications.

It is priced Rs. 2950 and is now available viagra prescription at a fraction of the cost of the original, generic pills offer the same potency as the brand medicines but at much lower prices and is widely available. levitra without prescription Stress urinary incontinence [45% improvement]. The very first step in the erectile conduction, the drug effect on flowing blood in the arteries to pass enough blood into the penis. generic cialis online The cause includes the excessive intake of alcohol is orden viagra viagra devensec.com extreme harmful of health.

War and Peace, Giants and Pygmies

Posted on: September 21st, 2007 by Ernie Regehr

Political correctness aside, Pearson’s point has not lost any of its trenchant relevance. He made the comment in his 1957 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and it was followed by three decades of the kind of Goliathon war preparations that are, and we hope will remain, unmatched in human history.

Indeed, the legacy of those precocious giants continues to exact an annual toll of hundreds of thousands of lives as well as billions of dollars that might otherwise be spent on preparations for peace. The 600 million-plus small arms that flood the planet continue to kill at least 250,000 people annually, many in war and many more in homicides, suicides, and law enforcement killings in societies not at war.[i]

The worlds 27,000 nuclear weapons, a figure well down from Cold War highs, continue to threaten annihilation and continue to cost the world billions of dollars each year, either to maintain or dismantle them, to clean up the environmental contamination caused in their production, and to carry out the inspections needed to prevent their spread.

In 2005 global military spending reached $1.2 trillion.[ii]Some of that is spent to keep the peace, but keeping the peace, research and experience of the past decade in particular have been telling us, is rather more complex than suggested by the ancient Latin bromide: “if you want peace prepare for war.”

It should be both fundamental and obvious that preparations for peace, for the security and safety of people, should respond to the ways they experience insecurity. And the most immediate threats to human security derive from unmet basic needs, political exclusion, denied rights, social and political disintegration, and the criminal and political violence that invariably accompany these conditions of insecurity.

The primary threats to the safety and welfare of people, in most cases, are not external military forces bent on attacking the territorial integrity or sovereignty of their state It should follow, therefore, that the build-up of military prowess is not the primary means of pursuing the security of people. Clearly, it is favorable social, political, and economic conditions – that is, economic development, basic rights and political participation, control over the instruments of violence, and skill in the peaceful settlement of disputes – that are essential to advancing human security.

For the most part, these approaches to international peace and human security are funded out of aid budgets (official development assistance ODA). Governments also spend separately on diplomacy and disarmament, of course, but it is still instructive to compare the ODA to Military Expenditures of states[iii] to get a sense of how Lester Pearson’s giants and pygmies are doing.

Some states put a high premium on ODA. In Norway and the Netherlands the ratio is 1:1.7 and 1:1.9 respectively – that is, even though military forces are extremely expensive to maintain, in Norway and the Netherlands military spending is less than double that of their development assistance.

Other states have different priorities. In the United States the ratio is 1:25.1 – that is, Washington spends 25 times more on military preparations than on development assistance. The global average is much better than the US example, but a long way from the model of Norway and Netherlands. Among OECD countries, the ODA to Military Expenditures ratio is 1:7.5.

And Canada? Here the ratio is 1:3.5 – much, much better than the worst cases, but there is still some work to do to match the Norwegian model. Canada would reach the Norwegian and Netherlands achievements if we but implemented our declared policy. If Canadian development assistance was actually raised to the declared objective of .7% of our gross national income, and if defence spending continued as currently projected, the ODA to Military ratio in Canada would reach about 1:2.

On this International Day of Peace it is an objective worth rediscovering.


[i] The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs calls small arms “weapons of mass destruction” and offers background and figures (http://www.irinnews.org/IndepthMain.aspx?IndepthId=8&ReportId=58952), and the International Action Network on Small Arms provides additional evidence (http://www.iansa.org/media/wmd.htm).

[ii] The Military Balance 2007, The International Institute for Strategic Studies (Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2007)

[iii] All figures are drawn from the IISS (see note 2), the OECD, and Canadian public accounts and are for 2005.

Pfizer really has its cialis for woman job cut out due to the currency exchange factor between Dollar and Rupee. The rich supply of the blood is only source of india generic viagra direct energy for the body organ. You can select your favorite flavor as per taste buds so that you can fully enjoy with your partner. levitra canadian pharmacy The effectiveness of herbs will depend on the root of the problem such as biochemical and biomechanical, acidic changes in the bile and pancreatic ducts and supports the proper flow of the gallbladder bile and pancreatic juice. canada generic viagra

The good news is in the details

Posted on: September 19th, 2007 by Ernie Regehr

The National Counterterrorism Centre of the United States delivers the cold hard facts:[i] in 2006 terrorist attacks rose by 25 percent and deaths at the hands of terrorists by 40 percent. But this time it’s not the devil that is in the details. It turns out that when you look closely, in Europe, Eurasia, East Asia, the Pacific, and the Western Hemisphere the already low levels of terrorism have declined even further.

Take the headline-making countries out of the equation – Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan, where incident of violence were up by 50-90 percent – and the trend is toward growing global safety.

Look at the world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia – in 2006 there were no high-casualty terrorist attacks and 95 percent fewer victims of terror than in 2005. Of course, the US “counterterrorism” centre says this “is likely attributable to a more robust regional counterterrorism effort,” but it’s actually a lot more complicated, and promising, than that.

Less than a decade ago, Indonesia was a poster country for a world of never-ending war. Project Ploughshares tracks and tabulates wars for its annual Armed Conflicts Report[ii]and Indonesia has featured prominently, hosting six separate wars over the past decade (many at the same time), but now Indonesia is absent from the report. In the southeast, war ended when East Timor gained independence. In Kalimantan (Borneo) and Sulawesi inter-ethnic and Christian-Muslim tensions remain, but the violence has ended. Tensions also continue in West Papua (Irian Jaya), but the fighting has stopped. InAceh in the northwest a new agreement grants the province considerable autonomy, following a 2005 peace accord. The Molucca (Maluku) Islands have also largely returned to normalcy.

This is the first time since 1987, when Ploughshares began reporting annually on armed conflicts, that Indonesia has failed to make an appearance on the Armed Conflicts Map.[iii] Indeed, it’s a failure that is spreading – the current map shows 29 conflicts in 25 countries, the lowest numbers since 1987.

But conflicts don’t usually end by accident, and they almost never end because one side wins. They end because the participants are persuaded, as a result of a great deal of determined and multifaceted diplomatic, humanitarian, and political effort, to pursue other options.

In the last decade, 35 conflicts have ended in that way. In fact, while wars and rumors of wars remain all too prominent a feature of this planet, every war now raging could have been prevented (and that includes the tragedies of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan) and can and will be ended.

Ending wars does not end conflict, but it does demilitarize it and that is what the visionary drafters of the United Nations Charter had in mind. They wrote eloquently in the preamble about their intention to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and in Article 26 they sought to give their bold vision substance by mandating member states to establish “a system for the regulation of armaments” as part of a larger effort to “promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources.”

The headlines and taxes remind us daily that Article 26 still awaits implementation (taxpayers fund military expenditures at the rate of a thousand-plus billion dollars annually). But that doesn’t mean no one is trying to implement Article 26.

The postings in this space now begin a second year and they will continue to draw impetus from the international band of politicians, diplomats, researchers, and advocates who focus on pursuing the kind of peace and security arrangements that the Charter envisions. As promised here a year ago, postings in this space will focus on initiatives, policies, regulations, and security cooperation measures that are designed to control and reduce the arsenals of war, to reduce the incidence and impact of armed conflict, and to encourage states to devote a greater share of their resources to building conditions for sustainable peace. Topics addressed will include: nuclear non-proliferation, controlling conventional weapons, current armed conflicts, and defence and human security.

It is the effort to ameliorate the insecurities that face most people on a daily basis that has the truly disarming effect on conflict. The core of preventing and terminating conflict is therefore to be found in attention to unmet basic needs, to political exclusion, denied rights, and social and political disintegration, and to the criminal and political violence that invariably accompany these conditions of insecurity. In other words, there is still too much to write about.


[i] “Report on Terrorist Incidents – 2006,” The United States National Counterterrorism Center, April 30, 2007 (http://wits.nctc.gov/reports/crot2006nctcannexfinal.pdf).

[ii] http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/ACRText/ACR-TitlePageRev.htm.

[iii]The Poster, http://www.ploughshares.ca/imagesarticles/ACR07/poster2007.pdf.

You are also advised to practice start and stop techniques to generic viagra australia cure premature ejaculation problem naturally. You also need to know if you can lose weight with the combination of buy cialis a healthy lifestyle. ED drugs like Kamagra, prices online cialis , Silagra, Super P Force tablets, kamagra jelly , and supplements are simplest way, while externally used devices like rings, vacuum devices, gel, injection, surgical process are used to restore vitality for enjoying sexual life. Make sure sales online viagra not to miss any precautions.