About this Event: Russia has employed the semi-state Wagner Group security company in Ukraine, Syria, the Central African Republic, Libya, Mozambique, and Mali (so far). Wagner is tightly connected to Russia's military intelligence organization (the GRU), and partially funded by one of Vladimir Putin's cronies, Evgeny Prigozhin, who also uses it for private duties. So why is Wagner technically illegal (and even unconstitutional) in Russia? Its use is less costly in budgetary and political terms than using the uniformed military, and it provides (limited) plausible deniability for Russian actions. But it is also unclear what Russia wants from impoverished sub-Saharan Africa. Using the best available evidence, this presentation explores these mysteries.
About the Speaker: Kimberly Marten is a professor of political science (and the department chair) at Barnard College, Columbia University, and a faculty member of Columbia’s Harriman Institute and Saltzman Institute. She has written four books, including Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States (Cornell, 2012), and Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation (Princeton, 1993) which received the Marshall Shulman Prize. The Council on Foreign Relations (where she is a member) published her special report, Reducing Tensions between Russia and NATO (2017). She is a frequent media commentator, and appeared on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. She earned her A.B. at Harvard and Ph.D. at Stanford, and was a CISAC post-doc.
Virtual Seminar
Kimberly Marten
Professor of Political Science (and the department chair) at Barnard College, Columbia University
Barnard College, Columbia University
Seminars
Russian Power and Purpose in the 21st Century Seminars
Islamism has imitated, or colluded with, the state autocracies it claims to oppose. It has failed to suggest its own answers to economic problems, social justice, education or corruption, writes Hicham Alaoui in Le Monde diplomatique. Click here to read the full article, which is based on research that Alaoui presented at UC Berkeley and CDDRL on October 10 and 11, respectively.
Hero Image
Supporters of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi at a Muslim Brotherhood rally. December 12, 2012.
In Unclear Physics, Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer tells the story of the Iraqi and Libyan programs from their origins in the late 1950s and 1960s until their dismantling.
The uprisings that spread across the Middle East in 2011 created new hope for democratic change in the Arab world. Four years later, the euphoria that greeted the Arab uprisings has given way to a far more somber mood, a recognition of the limits of mass protests to bring about political change, and acknowledgement that the region's entrenched authoritarian regimes are more resilient than many protesters imagined. Yet in responding to the challenge of mass politics, authoritarian regimes in the Middle East have not simply shown their resilience. In adapting to new challenges they have also changed, giving rise to new and more troubling forms of authoritarian rule, suggesting that the turmoil of recent years may be only the beginning of an extended period of political instability, violence, and repression in many parts of the Middle East.
Speaker Bio:
Steven Heydemann
Steven Heydemann serves as the vice president of Applied Research on Conflict at United States Institute of Peace. Heydemann is a political scientist who specializes in the comparative politics and the political economy of the Middle East, with a particular focus on Syria. His interests include authoritarian governance, economic development, social policy, political and economic reform and civil society. From 2003 to 2007, Heydemann directed the Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown University. From 1997 to 2001, he was an associate professor in the department of political science at Columbia University. Earlier, from 1990-1997, he directed the Social Science Research Council’s Program on International Peace and Security and Program on the Near and Middle East. Heydemann is the author of Authoritarianism in Syria: Institutions and Social Conflict, 1946-1970 (Cornell University Press, 1999), and editor of Networks of Privilege in the Middle East: The Politics of Economic Reform Revisited, (Palgrave Press, 2004), and War, Institutions and Social Change in the Middle East (University of California Press, 2000).
This event is co-sponsored by the Arab Studies Institute
In a recently released paper titled “Rethinking Libya's Political Isolation Law" co-produced by Brookings Doha Center (BDC) and CDDRL’s Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, Roman David and Houda Mzioudet examine the controversy over Libya’s Political Isolation Law (PIL) that passed in May 2013 and its likely effects. The BDC-Stanford University Project on Arab Transitions aims to generate comprehensive analysis of the conditions affecting democratization and good governance during the period of Arab transition.
Hero Image
Vote counting begins in the election for the new president of Libya's General National Congress in Tripoli June 25, 2013.
Nearly three years after the fall of the Qaddafi regime, Libya’s revolution has stalled. Militias continue to run rampant as the government struggles to perform basic functions. Theoretically to protect the revolution, Libya passed its Political Isolation Law (PIL) in May 2013, effectively banning anyone involved in Qaddafi’s regime from the new government. The law has raised serious questions: Does it contribute to effective governance and reconciliation? Does it respect human rights and further transitional justice? Will it undermine Libya’s prospects for a successful democratic transition?
In this Brookings Doha Center-Stanford "Project on Arab Transitions" Paper, Roman David and Houda Mzioudet examine the controversy over Libya’s PIL and the law’s likely effects. Drawing on interviews with key Libyan actors, the authors find that the PIL has been manipulated for political purposes and that its application is actually weakening, not protecting, Libya. They caution that the PIL threatens to deprive Libya of competent leaders, undermine badly needed reconciliation, and perpetuate human rights violations.
David and Mzioudet go on to compare the PIL to the personnel reform approaches of Eastern European states and South Africa. Ultimately, they argue that Libyans would be better served if the PIL were replaced with a law based on inclusion rather than exclusion and on reconciliation rather than revenge. They maintain that Libya’s democratic transition would benefit from an approach that gives exonerated former regime personnel a conditional second chance instead of blindly excluding potentially valuable contributors.
The Obama administration says there is no doubt that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was responsible for a recent chemical weapons attack near Damascus, which Syrian opposition forces and human rights groups allege killed hundreds of civilians.
Secretary of State John Kerry called the attack a “moral obscenity” and the White House has vowed to respond – though the question of how is still under debate.
The Syrian government denies using nerve agents on its own people and has allowed U.N. weapons inspectors into the country to investigate.
As the U.S. weighs its options and rallies its allies for a possible military strike, Stanford scholars examine the intelligence and discuss the implications of military action against Syria. Those scholars are:
Martha Crenshaw, one of the nation’s leading experts on terrorist organizations and a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Thomas Fingar, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council and currently the Oksenberg-Rohlen distinguished fellow at FSI
Thomas Henriksen, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution specializing in U.S. foreign policy and author of the book, “America and the Rogue States”
Anja Manuel a CISAC affiliate, co-founder and principal at RiceHadleyGates LLC, a strategic consulting firm, and lecturer in Stanford's International Policy Studies
Allen S. Weiner, a CISAC affiliated faculty member and co-director of the Stanford Program in International Law at the Stanford Law School
Amy Zegart, an intelligence specialist who is the CISAC co-director and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution
Does a military strike on Damascus risk further inflaming terrorists operating in Syria who hate the United States?
Crenshaw: I doubt that an American military response to the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons will make al-Qaida and affiliates hate us any more than they already do. The effect on wider public opinion in the Arab and Muslim worlds is what we should be thinking about. As the U.N. noted in a recent report, al-Qaida has a strong presence in Syria and is attracting outside recruits. The Al Nusrah Front in Syria is affiliated with the Iraqi al-Qaida branch. And Hezbollah's involvement has only intensified sectarian violence.
The three-year civil war has claimed some 100,000 lives and forced an estimated 1.9 million Syrians to flee their country, according to the U.N. Why is it taking President Obama so long to take a more assertive policy in Syria?
Manuel: There are no great policy options in Syria. The administration said several times that “stability” in Syria — even if that means a continuing, limited civil war — is more important than a decisive victory over President Bashar al-Assad. The administration also believes that U.S. military intervention short of using ground troops is unlikely to lead to the creation of a new post-Assad regime that will be friendly to the United States. Finally, the Obama administration is understandably hesitant to side with the rebel groups, which — in part due to U.S. unwillingness to actively assist moderate Syrian elements for the past two years — have become increasingly radicalized. Al Qaida-allied extremists now make up a growing segment of the rebel movement and some groups are reportedly creating “safe havens” within Syria and Iraq.
Listen to Manuel on public radio KQED Forum about whether U.S. should intervene.
CISAC's Anja Manuel talks to Al Jazeera America about Syria:
Have past U.S. intelligence failures made Obama skittish about taking a tougher stance against Syria?
Zegart: Iraq's shadow looms large over Syria. The intelligence community got the crucial WMD estimate wrong before the Iraq war and they absolutely don't want to get it wrong now. People often don't realize just how rare it is to find a smoking gun in intelligence. Information is almost always incomplete, contradictory and murky. Intentions – among governments, rebel groups, individuals – are often not known to the participants themselves and everyone is trying to deceive someone.
What is the intelligence gathering that goes into making the determination that nerve agents were used?
Fingar: The first challenge for the U.S. government is to determine whether and what kind of chemical agents were used. Chain-of-custody issues must be addressed to ensure that samples obtained are what they are claimed to be, and once samples have been obtained, what they are can be established with reasonably high confidence using standard laboratory and pathology techniques.
If it is determined that specific chemical agents were used in a specific place and time, then the next step is to determine who used the agents. Analysts would then search previously collected information to discover what is known about the agents in question, which groups were operating in the area, and whether we might have information germane to the specific incident. Policymakers must be informed about any analytical disagreements if they’re to make informed decisions about what to do in response to the incident.
Pressure on decision-makers to “do something” about Syria may influence their decisions, but it should not influence the judgments of intelligence analysts. If they are suspected of cherry-picking the facts and skewing judgments to fit pre-determined outcomes – they are worse than useless.
How do we know the Syrian opposition did not use nerve gas in an effort to provoke military intervention and aid their efforts to topple Assad?
Henriksen: Tracing the precise origin of gas weapons is not an exact forensic science. It is conceivable that a rebel group staged a "black flag" operation of releasing a deadly gas to provoke a U.S. attack on the Assad regime. But in this case, both Israeli and Jordanian intelligence reports appear to confirm U.S. identification of Assad as the perpetrator of the chemical attacks.
If it's confirmed that Syria did use chemical weapons against it own people, is this a violation of the Geneva or Chemical Weapons Conventions?
Weiner: A chemical weapons attack of the kind that's been described in the media certainly violates the laws of war. Syria, as it happens, is one of only a few countries in the world that is not a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention. Nevertheless, the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons in warfare is a longstanding rule. It is reflected in both the 1907 Hague Convention regulating the conduct of war and the 1925 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. (Syria is a party to the 1925 Convention.) The use of a weapon like this also violates the prohibition in the 1977 Geneva Protocols and customary international law on indiscriminate attacks that are incapable of distinguishing between permissible military targets, on the one hand, and the prohibited targeting of civilians and civilian objects, on the other.
If Damascus has violated the conventions, are there non-military actions that can be taken?
Weiner: The illegal use of chemical weapons is a violation of a jus cogens norm, i.e., a duty owed to all states, which means states would have the right to respond to the breach. Such an attack would presumably be a basis for the unilateral imposition of sanctions or severance of relations with Syria. There's an open question under international law whether states not directly injured by Syria's actions could take "countermeasures" that would otherwise be illegal as a way of responding to Syria's illegal action. Under a traditional reading of international law, a violation like this does not give rise to the right by other states to use force against Syria absent an authorization under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter by the Security Council.
Are there legal means for Washington to bypass the Security Council, knowing that Russia and China would veto any call to action against Syria?
Weiner: Under the U.N. Charter, a state may use force against another state without Security Council authorization only if it is the victim of an armed attack. Most commentators believe this has been expanded to include the right to use force against an imminent threat of attack. But under the prevailing reading of the U.N. Charter, a mere "threat" to U.S. national security would not provide a justification for the use of force.
But the Obama administration is arguing that Assad's actions pose a direct threat to U.S. national security?
Weiner: Some international lawyers – but not very many – argue that there is a right of humanitarian intervention under international law that would permit states to use force even without Security Council approval to stop widespread atrocities against its own population. But this remains a contested position, and most states, including the United States, have not to date embraced a legal right of humanitarian intervention.
What are some recent precedents in which the U.S. intervened militarily?
Weiner: The situation in Syria is not unlike the one faced in Kosovo in 1999, when a U.S.-led coalition did use force to stop atrocities that the Milosevic regime was committing against Kosovar Albanians. As part of its justification for the use of force, the United States cited the ongoing humanitarian crisis and the growing security threat to the region. What's interesting is that the U.S. was careful to characterize its use of force in Kosovo as "legitimate," rather than "legal." I am among those observers who think that choice of words was intentional, and that the U.S. during the Kosovo campaign advanced a moral and political justification for a use of force that it recognized was technically unlawful.
How does one know when diplomacy has reached a dead-end and military intervention remains the only course of action?
Henriksen: It has become nearly reflexive in U.S. diplomacy that force is the last resort after painstaking applications of diplomacy. The Obama administration followed that arc dutifully with appeals and hoped that U.N. envoys could persuade Assad to step aside. In retrospect, it seems that U.S. intervention soon after the outbreak of widespread violence in the spring of 2011 would have been a better course of action. Now, Russia, China and Iran have entrenched their support of Damascus. And, importantly, Hezbollah has joined the fight.
Now, with Washington's "red line" crossed by Syria's use of chemical arms, America almost has to strike or lose all credibility in the Middle East and beyond.
Should we be concerned about getting pulled into another long and costly war? Or is there a way to get in, make our point, and get out?
Henriksen: The worry about stepping on a slippery slope into another war in the Middle East is of genuine concern. Obama's intervention into Libya in early 2011 does provide a model for the use of limited American power. President Bill Clinton's handling of the 77-day air campaign during the Kosovo crisis in early 1999 provides an example of limited interventions. Both these interventions can be analyzed for their pluses and minuses to aid the White House in striking a balance. But no two conflicts are ever exactly the same.
What is the endgame here?
Henriksen: American interest in the Syrian imbroglio are to check Iran, the most threatening power in the Middle East, and to curtail the conditions lending themselves to spawning further jihadists who will prey on Americans and their allies. At this juncture, it appears that the fragmentation of Syria will become permanent. It's fracturing like that of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and will result in several small states. One or more of these mini-states might possibly align with the United States; others could become Sunni countries with Salafist governments, and the rump state of Assad will stay tight with Iran. The fighting could subside, leaving a cold peace or the tiny countries could continue to destabilize the region. Any efforts that undercut al-Qaida franchises or aspirants are in American interests.
Hero Image
Children, affected by what activists say was a gas attack, breathe through oxygen masks in the Damascus suburb of Saqba, Aug., 21, 2013.
The fourth annual conference of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy (ARD) organized in collaboration with the University of Tunis, El Manar and the Centre d'études maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT), took place in Tunis on March 28 and 29, 2013. The conference theme 'Building Bridges: Towards Viable Democracies in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya' examines the cornerstones of democratic transition in those countries.
The conference engaged leading scholars, policymakers, and practitioners from all three countries, as well as international experts, to reflect on the process of democratization in those countries from a comparative perspective. The key issues the conference addressed are:
The fourth annual conference of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy (ARD) organized in collaboration with the University of Tunis, El Manar and the Centre d'études maghrébines à Tunis (CEMAT), will take place in Tunis on March 28 and 29, 2013.
This year's conference theme 'Building Bridges: Towards Viable Democracies in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya' examines the cornerstones of democratic transition in those countries.
The conference aims to engage leading scholars, policymakers, and practitioners from all three countries, as well as international experts, to reflect on the process of democratization in those countries from a comparative perspective. The key issues the conference will address are:
- Constitution drafting - National dialogues and civil society - Political coalitions and Islamism - Political participation and pluralism - Economic policy - Arab relations with the USA and Europe
The full conference agenda can be found on our website through the link below, where those interested in attending can also register for the event.
Steven Heydemann
