Dealing with Putin

The results of the Russian Presidential Election had barely begun when a victory party in honour of Vladimir Putin began in Moscow. Those who had predicted that the margin would be relatively comfortable – around 59% on current results – were proved correct. Omens were seen in the reshuffling of Vladislav Surkov out of the Kremlin; Surkov, it was believed, had argued that Putin needed to limit the extent of his support to something like 53% to be seen as credible amongst those wavering on whether to join the protest movement.

Accusations of vote-rigging have already been levelled. In some areas, such as Dagestan or Chechneya, which will grant Putin Saddam Hussein-like levels of support, evidence is hardly needed. The West will feel the need to query the results, but in the absence of internal pressure on the Kremlin (i.e. one of the major candidates calling for a re-run, supported by large public demonstrations), that will blow over.

Nonetheless, the West will have to make some big calls over the next couple of years, which will undoubtedly impact on its relationship with Putin. Here are some of them:

1. Does the US proceed to repeal the Jackson Vanik agreement? The arguments against repeal and for a specific exemption are well made here, yet it is hard to see how the amendment can apply to today’s Russia, or to two countries in the World Trade Organisation.
2. How does the WTO relationship pan out? Russia’s accession to the WTO theoretically makes it more difficult for Russia to adopt preferential trade agreements with favourite partners, or to block imports from neighbours like Ukraine or Georgia, but the Kremlin will undoubtedly lean on the US and EU to prevent this.
3. Does the EU push through the liberalisation of the European gas trade? This article highlights the problems that Gazprom’s fixed term contracts are causing EU members. Might this be a moment when the EU finds a common position on Russia?
4. The autumn of 2012 is likely to see Britain open an inquest into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, opening a barely healed sore. The Kremlin refuses to extradite the suspects, so how far does Britain go? Sanctions are plausible, but are likely to be restricted to travel visas for certain officials to begin with. If that doesn’t solve anything (and it probably won’t), where do you go from there?
5. Does the EU press ahead with a or the US expand its Magnitsky List of sanctions?
6. Do the EU and/or US ratchet up the pressure on Russia over Iran and Syria? Russia is unlikely to want to ditch its allies, while the West is becoming increasingly anxious in both cases. Will Vladimir Putin take diplomatic urgency as an affront or an expample of Western ‘colonialism’ as he has recently accused Britain of pursuing?
7. Does the EU start to bring sanctions on Ukraine if the 2012 elections are described as undemocratic? Putin has not treated Viktor Yanukovych as an important strategic ally, but neither will he want to see the West weakening a country that many in Russia see as essentially Russian and/or a bulwark against the advance of NATO and the EU.
8. How does the US manage the Reset? The geopolitical pressures that existed in George W. Bush’s time no longer exist, while both Russia and the US appear to have benefitted from the Reset between Obama and Medvedev. The Reset could easily survive, if limited to arms control, but as a principle, bilateralism is difficult with Putin. Wilfully threatening at his worst and dependent on anti-Americanism to sustain his electoral machine, the advantages that Medvedev sought from Washington will not benefit Putin, who will instead have to face the goading of John McCain and potentially a Republican Senate.

The Middle East; A Belated New Beginning

Their peoples are speaking, but no one can be sure what they are saying. Bill Clinton’s pithy summary of democracy holds true almost universally, but particularly so in a revolutionary situation such as that in Tunisia and Egypt today. The former has already lost a President, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia with his ill-gotten lootings from the state coffers last week. Egypt’s octogenarian President, Hosni Mubarak, clings on to the vestiges of his thirty-year reign, for now.

The idea that the Middle East, seen almost perennially as an unchanging landscape of dictators of more or less benevolence, could suddenly be transformed is appealing depending on the degree to which you view these countries as bulwarks against democracy, or Islamism, progress, or war. The US, and UK governments – both allies of Egypt’s President, are hedging their bets in calling for reform and not repression – largely because of the uncertainty as to what will replace Mr Mubarak, should he leave or be forced out.

The Alternatives

Those keenest on a change of regime are typically universalists who believe that indigent movements directed at corrupt governments are more likely to be liberal in character than not. The most likely occurrence should former establishments take wholesale flight is a form of Islamic democracy, or a government in which the largest parties are Islamic in tone. Unfortunately, there are few examples of what this would actually mean – the nature of Turkey’s government owes more to a balancing act between the secular army and the mildly Islamic governing party, while Asian examples are also quantitatively different.

The man who would be interim-President, at least, is Mohamed ElBaradei; a long time dissident and head of the International Atomic Energy Agency for the past decade or so. Mr ElBaradei has already carved out a niche as something of an irritant to Washington, criticising the invasion of Iraq, defending Iran against claims that it is developing a nuclear weapon, and calling Israel the greatest security threat to the region. He has returned to Egypt, calling for decisive action to bring Egyptians the human rights they have been denied, and contradicting Hillary Clinton’s opinion that the regime is currently stable.

Mr ElBaradei appears to be sincere, but he is also keen to lead the revolution. The best outcome would be if he ran for President in free elections by the end of 2011 or early next year. However, 2005’s multi-party elections, the first in Mr Mubarak’s reign, were marked by vote-rigging and political persecution. Mr ElBaradei says that he will not run in a loaded race, so his tactic is therefore to precipitate the collapse of the current regime.

Once the crisis has passed, whoever is in control will need to get a grip on the economic situation, particularly given that the protests have been linked to high fuel prices and the poverty rates stands at 20%. Inflation is high, partially due to global factors such as high oil prices, but also because of its deficit. Nonetheless, Egypt’s mainstays – energy exports, tourism and the Suez Canal – will remain in demand and growth is likely to increase from the 4.6% it currently stands at. This should allow a new government a relatively fair wind.

The American Response

Barack Obama when he came to office in 2009, was a universalist. His Cairo Speech takes the Islamic world as a whole, promising economic progress, tolerance, democracy and a fair hand in the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process. Yet, he soon discovered that the Arab world was nothing like as united as he imagined. Wikileaks has revealed to us the depth of concern about Iran, who gave short-shrift to his proposals for talks, and while he has attempted to make headway in the Peace Process, he has been rebuffed by a conservative Israeli government.

Many of the promises in the Cairo speech will appear broken if Obama does not support the protestors, although he has some grace in that nobody will expect him to come down on one side immediately, and his championing of reform will be popular, albeit that it will be considered a scant reward if it is the only thing to come out of these protests.

Unfortunately Mr Obama has been in this situation before – in 2009, protests in Iran belied the impression that President Ahmedinejad’s popularity was limitless and nearly derailed the negotiations which were a centrepiece of his foreign policy at the time. Moreover, Mr Obama will be coming under pressure from Israel, who will suggest that the alternatives make the Peace Process more problematic and that a new Egyptian government could repeal the 1979 peace treaty – the bedrock of the current status quo in which the major Arab nations accept Israel’s existence. The current state of Israeli politics, despite a great deal of activity on the left, does not suggest that a unilateral concession to the Palestinians is likely, while Hamas has been emboldened by claims that Mohammed Abbas offered extensive territorial concessions in return for a deal in 2008.

America is in a difficult position – it will not want to alienate its allies, but its intervention could prove crucial. On the other hand, Mr Obama will instinctively want to be on the side of the new generation, or risk losing it. Egypt’s population and wealth, as well as the current stage in the development of its protests make it the lynchpin of the Middle East. Whatever happens to Tunisia, Egypt will have an influence on it, as it will on Israel. But at the same time, Lebanon is degenerating into one of its regular fits of Hezbollah-inspired self-destruction. The Middle East can ill-afford more powers divided against themselves, for an easy resolution will not be quick in coming.

Tell Me Something I Don’t Know

Russia is corrupt, Silvio Berlusconi’s late-night amusements do not consist of hot-chocolate and Jane Austen novels and Kazakhstani officials are big fans of Elton John. Granted, the last point came as something of a shock, but the general consensus on the “unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities” is that Wikileaks has not given us all that much of an insight.

One of the surprising claims made by Wikileaks is that America is proving its own guilt and moral baseness – and the onus for Wikileaks is decidedly on America’s activities in the world – by informing foreign governments on what they are likely to read in The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El Pais.

The American government is hardly acting hypocritically here – most of us would make a full disclosure if we knew we were about to be shopped by some holder of privileged information. And neither is America the only concerned country. Governments around the world are afraid that they may be implicated in discussions that look like conspiracies, that they might lose face, or that they might be shown to be acting irrationally. Some will be tempted to gloat at America’s misfortune, and foolishness, but they most likely do so out of concern for their own embarrassment.

Successful diplomacy relies to a considerable extent on discretion. Governments share intelligence and sometimes gossip, criticise each other and make entreaties. The anger that most will feel is that less of what Wikileaks reveals is done in public, such as Canada’s foreign minister pointing out that despite attempted interventions by the US government, the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, acts with relative impunity in releasing prisoners wanted for supplying drugs.

Yet what Wikileaks does not try to do is show the arch of American diplomacy. It is like a thousand close-up photographs of a shape that cannot be assembled by the human eye. Criticism of Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, obscures the fact that the United States has pushed hard for EU accession. It also obscures the chain of command, meaning that an indiscreet comment by diplomatic staff is taken to mean as much as a major speech by a Secretary of State.

An Uncertain World

On the other hand, the careful editorialising of newspapers and other media has given the material some sort of shape – not the moral one that Wikileaks intended – but a more realistic one. Despite being a superpower, and an idealistic one at that, America is quite simply faced with a forbidding and chaotic world. What is most impressive is that it takes its duties as a global policeman so seriously.

There was outcry when Wikileaks published its document troves on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US Army was implicated in torture, the negligent killing of civilians and incompetence. How Iran and China gloated and France and Germany puffed themselves up at the inadequacy of decisions made in the fog of war; all connected, they assumed, to the one big mistake that was the decision to go to war in the first place.

The embassy files show a much less belligerent America than has been imagined, even under George Bush. Several files show a considerable amount of collusion between China and Iran over the latter’s nuclear programme. Yet the American attitude to Iran has been patient in the extreme. The history of US-Iran relations has been gloriously indiscreet, but America has been aware that Iran is not only seeking to destabilise the Middle East, but has had evidence of weapons programmes since September 2001 and has not acted unilaterally. Indeed, when in 2004 photographs of an Iranian weapons facility were made public, the US and its allies (if they could be called that) entered into the most intensive trade and incentive talks. From 2006, Iran armed Shia militias in Iraq to cause wanton destruction. Iran then rejected offers to assist the enrichment of uranium for peaceful purposes in 2007 and in January of this year, and yet, we are on the threshold of a new deal being offered to an unelected and incorrigible regime.

Wikileaks has not yet uncovered American double-standards on Iran because on the contrary, the rest of the Middle East is much more concerned about a nuclear power intent on destroying its Jewish and Sunni enemies. What is also interesting is that Israel has expressed satisfaction in its portrayal through the Wikileaks documents, citing the unwillingness of Egypt to intervene to stabilise Gaza, the unreliability of Fatah and the menace of Iran as justification of its foreign policy.

Much of what Wikileaks has revealed thus far is what we already know, largely because the same sentiments are openly held at the highest levels. As this perceptive commentary has it, the only arena that has had no light shed on it is the Palestinian Question. This is fortunate, not because the US is likely to be behaving in a particularly underhand or despicable manner – the frustrations and limits of American power are pretty plain to see – but because there are so many interested parties in the region, all cynically trying to establish the best means of gaining American support and protection while buying off potentially disruptive domestic or cross-border forces.

Another Shake of the Kaleidoscope?

Julian Assange, who founded Wikileaks, is thin-skinned, prone to interpret everything in an anti-American light and not averse to making deals that would potentially make Wikileaks at least rich. None of these are cardinal sins, and there is a very great virtue in that Wikileaks does not appear to have editorialised by doctoring the documents, only by releasing them in tranches. He says he is releasing these documents in the name of peace, but they may very well mean more war and instability.

One thing that Wikileaks has revealed that could be of some importance is that China might back a united Korea in the interests of securing its border. The latest North Korean crisis has thankfully passed, it seems. But come a time when the dictatorship of the Kim family becomes unsustainable, this intelligence will be difficult for Beijing to row-back on. The other piece of intelligence about China that is new is that America offered to set up an agreement with Saudi Arabia to compensate China for any loss of supply from Iran in order to apply more punitive sanctions. That China refused speaks volumes for the mercantile character of the supposedly communist regime there. It seeks stability above all, but will chip away at American economic hegemony by increment if at all possible.

Iran, Pakistan (hardly covered here) and North Korea form an arc of uncertainty that upholds most of the geopolitical injustices in the world at present. An aggressive Iran menaces Israel directly and indirectly, forcing them to abandon the prospect of engagement with Hamas on behalf of the Palestinians, funds and supplies Hezbollah in Syria and threatens the nascent democracy in Iraq. Pakistan borders on complete failure as a state with attendant dangers in terms of its nuclear programme and the opportunity this would afford to al-Quaeda, whilst threatening the nascent state (I won’t say democracy, although it is more so than Iran) of Afghanistan. North Korean simply plays on uncertainty and fear in order to create differences between the US and China.

Iran is undoubtedly the key to the jigsaw, but a solution to the problem that North Korea poses could be the first step to engaging China more seriously in the world. Barack Obama may be right to spurn a resumption of the Six-Party Talks as North Korea hardly deserve more attention, but he should be discussing the possible reunification of Korea with China as such events rarely happen with much forewarning. The Chinese, however, will not be candid unless they can be quite sure that America’s diplomatic channels are confidential.

An excellent history of diplomatic indiscretion

Uncertainty – the Line Between Aggression and Defence

It really is amazing how little is known specifically about the ‘flotilla’ and Israel’s purpose in intercepting it. It may well be a question of the prevention of terror, and it looks like provocation at best, but the chickens of Israel’s lack of proportion and indifference to international opinion in recent years are coming home to roost.

Such have been the actions of Israel’s current government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu and its previous one, led by Ehud Olmert, that Israel’s ability to credibly portray this exercise as an act of self-defence has been severely hampered.

A Steady Slide of Responsibility

Although Israel has never peacefully enjoyed the fruits of its existence, its history since 2006 has been worrying. On January 4 of that year, Ariel Sharon had a massive stroke and lapsed into the coma that he is still in to this day. Sharon had never been regarded as a liberal, but he was a canny operator who knew how to play up Israel’s vulnerabilities – often by provoking its enemies. His policy of Unilateral Withdrawal from the Gaza Strip may not have won him any new supporters, for his motives were certainly open to question, but he effectively carved out a central position in Israeli politics and left none other than Netanyahu high and dry.

Sharon’s stroke, coupled with the election of Hamas in Gaza, had the effect of enfeebling his policy. His successor, Ehud Olmert, overreacted to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah and trampled over Lebanon, perhaps its most sympathetic neighbour. The war indicated the beginning of a period in which Israel would be easily provoked and led into situations where it could be accused of disproportionate aggression It also began the separation Israel from its allies – finishing off Tony Blair’s premiership.

The Lebanon War was followed by an attack on Hamas in Gaza in 2008. Gaza was a repeat of Lebanon in terms of public reactions, though its justifications were sounder. Rocket and mortar attacks on Israel had increased by 240% on 2007 levels, but the legacy of the war in the minds of most has been the Goldstone Report, which accused both sides of war crimes, a situation which Hamas could better endure than Israel.

Olmert was forced to resign over a corruption scandal in 2009, leading to elections in which Netanyahu has been able to form a coalition. Netanyahu, a noted hawk, has made it his mission to divide the relatively sceptical President Obama from the more unquestioning pro-Israel grouping in Congress by announcing further settlement expansions, although domestic political considerations also play their part.

A Misjudged Act of Defence

The circumstances around the loss of life in the boarding of the six ships sailing from Turkey to Gaza are very murky, which is why an inquiry is right. However, the success of that inquiry will depend on how much assistance the Israelis give, and how willing they are to divulge their intelligence, which seem unlikely.

Israel says that it had been in contact with the ships for days previously and warned them to divert but in the event that they did not do so, surrounded and boarded the ships. If Israel had tried to minimise fatalities – there is some contradiction between ‘shoot to kill’ and reports of rubber bullets and stun guns – it did not try hard enough. What’s more, it appears that the flotilla was not necessarily the bunch of terrorist sympathisers that Israel had anticipated – hence their enthusiasm to deport the detainees.

Another part of the controversy is that Israel acted in international waters, and its blockade of Gaza has drawn criticism from Nick Clegg and David Miliband today. The UN has previously criticised Israel for allowing less than a quarter of the recommended humanitarian aid into Gaza, and indeed, this list of proscribed items seems draconian.

An Unhappy and Uneasy Settlement

The fact remains, however, that policing shipments of aid into Gaza is a sensitive subject. Unwilling to trust any other supervisor, Israel issues its own warrants and carries out its own searches. That said, the limits of its allies have been comprehensively illustrated by this incident. Relations with Turkey, one of Israel’s most significant Muslim allies have been deteriorating for some time now, and the Turkish government’s uncompromising response to the nine deaths gives the impression of a trap that Israel has walked into. The UN, meanwhile, has diluted criticism of Israel, but the Security Council responds only to crises and with a kind of creative tension that still leads to calls such as this; to release all ships.

Israel is now caught in an awkward situation. If it intends to bluff out this latest blow to its image, it may well find itself even more isolated. That is not a consideration that will sway Netanyahu, but were more protestors to attempt a second flotilla he will have to decide whether to risk more violence and more outrage, and possibly another war, or a loosening of the blockade. Netanyahu is an instinctive conservative, who resisted Sharon’s great gamble in 2005. There is no sign yet that Israel will not be able to endure, even if the situation worsens, but a revanchist attitude will deepen the injustice that it is currently perpetrating.

Obama’s Surge – A Tidy Campaign?

Barack Obama came to office convinced that the war in Afghanistan was a right one, never mind that it was a useful juxtaposition against Iraq and charges of being labelled a woolly liberal. Eleven months into his term, the situation is much the same, demanding a major re-evaluation. An article in this Saturday’s New York Times gives an insightful overview into the process by which Obama has come to make his vaunted statement on Afghan policy.

Obama has rightly decided that the time has come to start swimming, but the tide is very much against him. A difficult election returned President Karzai to power but his image has been tarnished by fraud and authoritarianism. The Taliban has regained a foothold – leading officials to fear for the sovereignty of Karzai’s government. Pakistan has apparently become less secure – evoking a long-running fear of a failed, nuclear state.

Winning the Battle for Public Opinion

On 2 December, Obama made his speech on Afghanistan at West Point Military Academy. The Economist in particular, was disappointed, stating in an editorial that;

this speech—perhaps the worst “big” one of his presidency—failed to present a persuasive case to America’s foes that he has the stamina to tackle them and, in his deceptively simple-sounding little phrase, to “finish the job”.

Read back, the speech is still the masterpiece of clarity and suasion that you would expect from Obama. America’s strategy was elucidated in three main points – a surge in troops starting in the middle of next year, a greater civilian effort, and new efforts to synthesise their approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

None of these are particularly new. In March Obama ordered more troops to the country, which the military failed to carry out conclusively. Civilian projects have long been debated, and will be fuelled by Hilary Clinton’s ambition for the State Department. And the Obama administration gave a clear sign of intent when it appointed Richard Holbrooke the Ambassador for AfPak.

More to the point, no details of the policies formed part of Barack Obama’s speech. What Obama does have on his side, is political goodwill. First, NATO has acceded to Obama’s request for support with a healthy supply of reinforcements.

Second, the Republican Party has coalesced around this ‘surge’, partly as a matter of principle, and partly as a reflection of Bush’s surge in Iraq (though Lord knows, they owe Obama nothing for his opposition to a policy which has made his gradual withdrawal from that theatre relatively painless).

Thirdly, the balance inside the administration is in favour of putting more troops in. Clinton, Robert Gates, and most of the Generals have come onside, though Joe Biden has been campaigning fanatically against the surge and Nancy Pelosi is known to be unimpressed.

Perhaps this is a reflection of Obama’s style of government. He has allowed the debate to go on for three months, never obviously siding with a position, except to exclude an immediate and unilateral withdrawal. Everyone has had their say, and ultimately, has been brought on board.

Winning the War – What Next for the Jihadi’s?

A political victory will be temporary, however, if the situation does not improve in the coming months. The great concern is Obama’s commitment. He used his speech to talk about values, but also America’s economy. When first presented with the plans for a surge (Obama has used the words in private, apparently) by General McCrystal, his response was that they needed to get troops in sooner, and out sooner still – before the next US Presidential elections, effectively.

The weight that has been put on Karzai has been focussed on getting a schedule for Afghan troops to take over security. Quite unlike Iraq, which now has a thriving party system, Afghanistan has a very limited political culture. Furthermore, it is unclear where the Taliban will fit into any future political system. The surge is not meant to smash them once and for all, but weaken them for a time. Perhaps it will be long enough to get some kind of system in place to isolate Al-Qaeda, but the question is how?

Without some sort of devolution agenda that can legitimise the warlord system, the prospects for the rule of law in Afghanistan look slim. The alternative is almost certainly a far more involved war, although not necessarily one that America will be involved in. Notice, also, how little has been said about Pakistan. If there is a strategy for the region, it is still vague.

Obama will have many things on his mind this Christmas. The economy, health care, the environment and Iran will all rank above Afghanistan, at least in terms of immediacy. The President may have hoped to buy some breathing space from his surge, but he has front-loaded his dice. America and Afghanistan will both suffer if this policy does not allow something to flourish in the AfPak Winter.

The Nobel Peace Prize

The Norwegian committee that decided to award this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama may have thought they were making a populist choice.  They were wrong.  Howls of derision are ringing out.  This is the first time since 1976 that the award has so flagrantly ignored results and so deliberately sought to encourage nascent progress. 

Indeed, it is hard to ignore the fact that Obama was nominated – as a matter of necessity – less than a month into his presidency.  That Obama’s election was a triumph for the progress of race relations in the United States is not in question, everyone agrees.  However, this award is in danger of making him a token, and further enraging the conservative elements in American politics that resent his neat public image and alleged discreet socialism.

And yet, it is doubtful that the Nobel Committee were so naïve.  It is just about possible to construct an argument for Obama, although it is a blatantly political and in some ways logically dubious one.  The argument, I think, runs something like this.

“The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”

It is easy to forget the role that nuclear weapons still play in our society.  Since the fall of the Soviet Union, they have been almost entirely irrelevant to the public consciousness.  But it would be as foolish to write the history of our times without reference to the bomb as it would to ignore its central role in the Cold War. 

The Iraq war was based on the premise that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction.  The pretext was Saddam’s refusal to allow UN inspectors full access to his country, and admittedly faulty evidence that Saddam was interested in plutonium from Niger.  That has since been obscured by six-years of conventional warfare, and accusations of duplicity.  Tony Blair was, I think, fundamentally honest when he described what he foresaw as the defining issue of  21st Century international relations;

“The threat is chaos. And there are two begetters of chaos. Tyrannical regimes with WMD and extreme terrorist groups who profess a perverted and false view of Islam.”

The latter of those two has come to be seen as more dominant, and it is the reason that Obama will almost certainly seek, through force, a conclusion to the war in Afghanistan.  But surveying the world in 2009, nuclear weapons, or weapons of mass destruction are of pressing concern.  North Korea has tested nuclear weapons, and Obama’s decision to reveal secret intelligence about Iran’s nuclear programme put President Ahmadinejad on the back foot.  The prospect of either of these nations achieving nuclear capability would undoubtedly create a new proliferation crisis, as neighbours rushed to arm themselves in defence.  The danger of so many contradictory policies of deterrent is grave.

That is why President Obama has sought a UN Resolution on non-proliferation, while stressing that the target was a world without nuclear weapons.  The document itself resolves virtually nothing, except to remain alert to these concerns.  It reaffirms a good deal, particularly the Non-Proliferation and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaties, but is essentially a statement, devoid of a decisive context.  In short, it achieves little.

“Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics.”

Thus, it is necessary to look elsewhere for progress.  The Nobel Committee implicitly argues in favour of two of Obama’s foreign policy instruments – his use of diplomacy, and the store he sets in multilateral institutions.  There is meat on the former, but whether the latter bears fruit remains to be seen.

Relations with Russia are a particular positive for Obama.  Since ‘pressing the reset button,’ negotiations have begun on reducing nuclear arms in the two countries (not a very significant gain in terms of non-proliferation because the threat is limited and Russian stocks are deteriorating, but superficially and financially helpful nonetheless) and, most importantly, Russia has begun to show signs that it will abide by sanctions on Iran.  That raises the prospect of greater collaboration, that the dilemma of 2003 can be avoided, but it does not guarantee it.

This year has been a multilateral year in many ways.  The meetings of the G20, in the shadow of the recession, have set a precedent in two respects.  Firstly, it has confirmed the expansion of the ‘club’, which decides on the world economy from the seven largest economies plus Russia, to a group that includes the most important developing nations.  Secondly, the collective response to the recession was choreographed, and significantly included more money and a greater respectability for the IMF, another multilateral body. 

If there is a serious headline achievement at Copenhagen on Climate Change, Obama will be able to refer to his grand speech at the UN, where he declared that “We have reached a pivotal moment”, where

“the United States stands ready to begin a new chapter of international co-operation – one that recognises the rights and responsibilities of all nations” and cite a response. 

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.”

Obama’s foreign policy team believe in something called ‘quantity theory’.  Essentially, small but high profile successes culminate into influence, meaning the quantity of power steadily increases.  The presidency began with the (wholly symbolic) closure of Guantanamo Bay and the (slightly more consequential) ban on torture in the US army.  Then came the well-received Cairo speech, and in August there was progress as Benjamin Netanyahu accepted a two-state solution and negotiations began on the settlements, although there was no Peace Plan to be unveiled at the UN.

Most recently came Obama’s UN speech itself, which was underrated, or at least crowded out by other news.  While he did not make it obvious how he was going to deal with every issue, Obama said several important things.  He pointed to four pillars, which were

“fundamental to the future we would like for our children; non-proliferation and disarmament; the promotion of peace and security; the preservation of our planet; and a global economy that advances opportunity for all people.“ 

He also spoke of the importance of human rights, and addressed head-on the concern that while

“the United Nations does extraordinary good around the world feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, mending places that have been broken… it also struggles to enforce its will, and to live up to the ideals of its founding.”

In part, there was little need to descriptive plans or schedules.  The point was to highlight areas for action, and open them up to collective action.  That may not be successful in the long run, but unwillingness to collaborate with America proved to be an obstacle during the Bush years. 

Should the reaction to it hold positive, the Nobel award adds prestige to Obama’s new strategy for engagement with the world.  It is to be hoped that it will reduce the regional sway of men like Ahmadeinejad and Chavez and commit the rest of the world, rather than just America to a particular course. 

Challenges are inevitable.  The disastrous demonstration against the Iranian election was dispiriting, there is every chance that Russia will remain as belligerent in its near-abroad, and China, Burma and Zimbabwe may continue to repress the human rights of their own citizens.  But should Obama’s strategy produce results, they will trump many of the individual contributions that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize before.