Jonathan Stevenson

Jihad and Piracy in Somalia

Piracy and rising Islamist militancy have intensified US and European diplomatic interest in Somalia, while . African perceptions of the establishment of US AFRICOM and the growing likelihood that the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa in Djibouti would become a long-term American base, have posed a strategic communications challenge for the United States. A deteriorating humanitarian situation in drought-plagued Somalia, precipitated by the October 2009 US suspension of food aid over fears that aid workers were diverting it to terrorists, and the prospect of unmanageable numbers of Somali refugees fleeing over comparatively stable Kenyas border, have increased pressure on Washington to revise US policy. These factors could lead to a new approach, consonant with the evolving emphasis on nuanced counter-insurgency, involving the application of soft power, such as development aid, with less scrutiny on governance. Robust, high-profile international diplomatic or military initiatives in Somalia, however, are unlikely. Near-term developments in Somalia will probably follow the depressingly familiar pattern whereby the Transitional Federal Government and Islamist militias maintain an uneasy military stalemate, with neither building the political infrastructure and good will required to tip the balance decisively.

Afghanistan: How Much is Enough?

US President Barack Obamas current policy favours escalation in Afghanistan. The idea is that as the United States’ military presence in Iraq is drawn down, the use of force can be refocused on Afghanistan to forge a more viable state. The principal instruments of this policy are more American troops with better force protection (a customised version of the counter-insurgency ‘surge’ employed with ostensible success in Iraq) and firmer bilateral diplomacy with Pakistan. The administrations policy appears to be overdetermined. The premise of the policy is that the United States must ‘own’ Afghanistan in order to defend its strategic interests. But that premise begs the question of whether US strategic interests actually require the United States to assume the grand and onerous responsibility of rebuilding the Afghan state. They do not.

Does Brexit Threaten Peace in Northern Ireland

The United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union may have hastened the coming of a united Ireland.

The Syrian Tragedy and Precedent

If Washingtons Syria policy succeeds, it will crystallise efforts to privilege diplomacy over the use of force and create a precedent other powers will be apt to follow.

Echoes of Gunfire: bin Laden, the US and the Greater Middle East

2011 was so long in coming – almost ten years after the 11 September attacks – that it was felt more as a relief than as a triumph. Despite the cheers and celebrations that erupted across the United States, the essential reaction was ‘it’s about time’. Because bin Laden had for years been viewed as a besieged and operationally hobbled figurehead, his demise seemed little more that welcome retribution for the blood he had shed, and a pleasant surprise to those who had just about stopped begrudging him his proverbial (and fictitious) cave. His death appeared to merely confirm, rather than precipitate, al-Qaeda’s political and strategic marginalisation. Consequently, its larger transformative potential may have seemed dubious. In fact, that potential is substantial, not because bin Laden had remained a vital operational cog in the jihadist machinery, but because most Americans and many others regard his death as President Barack Obama’s finest strategic moment. As Dominique Moisi wrote in Le Figaro, ‘it is as though there were a little more Obama in the United States, and a little more United States in the world’.1

Hawk and Dove

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General McMaster’s Sandwich

The new US national security advisor’s effectiveness will depend on President Donald Trump’s whim.

America the Lucky

Harry Truman in this book epitomises 1946 America, a country that was superficially triumphal, but on a deeper level exhausted and fearful.

Is Power in Decline

The title of Moisés Naíms new book, The End of Power, is unabashed hyperbole. By the evidence he adduces, the ongoing dispersal of power will entail undramatic and evolutionary adjustments.