UN Security Council Expansion

A recent state visit by US Preisdent Barack Obama to India, where he endorsed India's bid for a permanent seat on the UN security council, has once again raised the issue of expansion in the world's foremost peace-keeping institution. The proposed expansion or reorganisation is serious business. Despite the lampooning it has received as a result of it's recent lack of progress on halting Iran's rouge nuclear ambitions, nothing has the power to cause a diplomatic stir at the highest levels quite like the prospect of losing or gaining a seat on the security council. There are several important points at issue here including the current state of the council, how it should look ideally and what states should fill it's seats.

First how it currently looks. The security council has 15 seats, 5 are permanent, 10 other members are elected by the General Assembly for 2 year terms. The members are chosen by regional blocs. The African bloc chooses 3 members; the Latin American and Caribbean, Asian, and Western European and Others blocs choose 2 members each; and the Eastern European bloc chooses 1 member. Also, one of these members is always an "Arab country," alternately from the Asian or African bloc. The 5 permanent members are basically the winners of WWII, namely the US, Britain, France, Russia and China. Each of these permanent seat holders has a veto which they can use to block any substantial resolution from being passed.

Obviously this structure is outdated, but how should it change? The world has gotten more multi-polar in the last half a century, and certainly since the American dominated early 90s. To reflect this the number of permanent seats on the council should increase from 5 to 7. With more regional powers the body will have greater legitimacy. Overall however membership should stay capped at 15 so that the headaches caused by 2 extra vetoes are at least somewhat off-set by 2 less rotating members.

So how should the new seats be parcelled out? Firstly China, Russia and the US all deserve to keep their seats. These 3 countries represent 35% of global GDP and 26% of it's population. Doing business without them is simply not an option. France and Britain do not deserve a seat each, but the EU does deserve one. It is the world's largest economy by GDP and is increasingly learning to speak with one voice on the world stage. A shared security council seat will only further the cause of integration. That leaves 3 seats open in this scenario and one of those should go to India. The world's biggest democracy has it's failings, sprawling bureaucracy and a poor stewardship of Kashmir among them, but since it's liberation, and especially in recent years, it has taken strides in improving the lot of it's citizens, lifting millions out of poverty and into a new global middle class. Next up, Indonesia. This south-east Asian nation is significant enough to warrant a seat for several reasons. It's economy is thriving, it's politics are stable and it has the world's largest Muslim population so it's inclusion should draw approval from Middle-Eastern powers such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia while soothing Pakistani nerves, which are sure to be jangled at India's ascension to permanent member status.

So who deserves the last seat? Japan's name is often bandied about. A hardy global player for sure, Japan's economy has only just slipped into third place in the world after nearly 20 years in which it's growth never breached a 3% per year ceiling, and often performed far worse. Another factor that stands to it is that it is a western looking democracy in a region that could be of strategic importance in the coming years of regime change in North Korea. However, both these assets could be seen as liabilities. Resilience means nothing if Japan's economic decline is terminal, and the forecasts there do not bode well. It's western orientation also makes China more hostile to it's candidateship. Rather then fight China to give a waning power a seat on the council I would rather see the seat go to another rising star; Brazil. Without a doubt the poster child for South America, Brazil is a beacon of democracy and sensible market reform. New oil finds will augment it's importance on the world stage while big strides in pedology promise to turn the Cerrado into a regional bread basket.

This leaves the small but significant question of which blocs should lose regional voting powers. Since it is the only continent in this scenario without a super-power on the council, Africa deserves to keep all 3 of it's elected representatives. With it's diverse interests so poorly represented by Russia, Eastern Europe also deserves to keep it's rotating member. The Western European and Others bloc has suffered a set back in that it has one less permanent seat then before but a gain in that the one seat it still has is far more representative. That said it should retain both of it's two rotating seats as it represents countries as disparate as Canada, Israel and Australia. That leaves Asia and Latin America losing one seat each. I feel this is justified given the addition of Indonesia and Brazil to the permanent security council. As for the rule about one rotating member always being from an Arab state, I leave it to the talking shops of the UN and the Arab League to decide if such a rule is necessary once a Muslim country, and a Sunni Muslim country at that, has a permanent seat.

Let's Talk About Sri Lanka

One of the world's longest running civil wars ended in May of last year. For 26 years the Government of Sri Lanka fought against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist organisation seeking statehood for the country's Hindu minority. Although the conflict has been on-going for more then two and a half decades it was only towards the end that the international community really started to take notice, mostly because of the horrendous rates of civilian casualties in the closing stages. Before I get into the nitty gritty of death tolls, displacement rates and so on I want to say a bit about Mahinda Rajapaksa, the country's president and the rebel outfit he faced. 

Rajapaksa was elected to Sri Lanka's Parliament at the age of 24 and served a stint as prime-minister before becoming president in 2005. In addition to the presidency he is his own Finance and Defence minister. His brothers occupy many top jobs in  Sri Lanka's Government including secretary of defence and speaker of parliament (the only office capable of impeaching a Sri Lankan president). Following the defeat of the Tamil Tigers the chief of the Sri Lankan armed Forces, Sarath Fonseka, challenged Rajapaksa in a presidential election. He was subsequently court marshalled, found guilty of using "treacherous words", stripped of his rank and medals and sent to prison. Sri Lanka's constitution limits presidents to two terms in office. Rajapaksa is currently trying to change this.

The Tamil Tigers were, objectively speaking, some of the worst human rights abusers and war criminals the world has ever seen. Their offences include some 163 suicide bombings, attacks on blatantly civilian targets including Buddhist shrines, the conscription of tsunami orphans as child soldiers and the ethnic cleansing of any territories they captured. During the closing stages of the war the Tigers prevented thousands of civilians from fleeing the conflict zone in order to use them as human shields to prevent army shelling. The tactic failed miserably.

Now you know a little bit about the forces involved let's talk some more about the campaign and it's consequences. At it's height just prior to the defeat of the rebels and for some time afterwards the war displaced some 300,000 Tamils from their farms and homes. Today, a year and a half after the end of combat operations, around 6000 are still prevented from returning home. Now this isn't all the Government's fault. When they started losing serious ground to the army the Tigers began lacing villages with mines and a lot of areas just aren't yet safe to go back to but there are other, more nefarious cases. An additional two ministries Rajapaksa manages to find room for on his stationary are Highways And Ports and Aviation. Many Tamil villagers are returning home to find their lands have been cleared for post-war development projects, power stations, industrial zones, etc.

The defeat of the Tigers has had a startling cost in human lives. Sri Lanka's defence ministry estimates that 6261 soldiers were killed and another 29,551 injured in the final 3 years of the fighting. The death toll over the course of the war could be as high as 23,000. This figure doesn't include civilian or rebel deaths, both of which were probably higher then military casualties. With the conflict finally at an end you might expect Sri Lanka to ease up on it's military spending. On the contrary, the army it set to grow by up to 300,000 more troops to secure the Tamil territories.

If there's one thing that makes me optimistic about the Sri Lanka's future it's that it's people are no slouches when it comes to democracy. When Rajapaksa first gained the presidency he did so with a razor thin majority of 50.3% Although much has happened in the past few years to erode the checks and balances on power I am of the opinion that democracy, once given, is very hard to take away and Rajapaksa will face an uphill struggle to maintain his authoritarian regime once the country has recovered from the effects of war.

Why I Like Israel

I'm used to being on the unpopular side of political arguments. And while sometimes I do this on purpose just because talking the bigger half of a crowd around is more fun then plain stamping on minority opinion, Israel is one of those topics where I really think one side is getting a raw deal as far as public relations go.

First a couple of facts; Israel was founded on May the 14th, 1948. The first Arab-Israeli war started May the 15th, 1948. Today roughly half of the world's 11 million Palestinians remain displaced from their traditional homeland. About 70% of Israel's Jewish population were born in Israel.

Let me be real clear about this, I don't endorse the Israeli policy in Gaza. In fact if we're going down that road I don't endorse the existence  of nation-states full stop. But since dismantling the political infrastructure of the entire world isn't usually an option in these discussions I'm going to stick to why I think Israel is the best of a bad bunch and how I think they might improve their strategy.

Discussions of why I like Israel usually come down to 3 points, first being the alternatives. Israel is a functioning democracy and Palestine isn't. Palestine's politics are still revolutionary, like Ireland's were and still kind of are in the North. When Palestine first gained the legitimacy to bestow political power they gave it to the political branch (Fatah) of the military organisation that fought for their independence (the Palestinian Liberation Organisation or PLO). Unfortunately Fatah was rife with corruption and incompetence and lost out in a more recent election against Hamas, an Islamist group for whom the destruction of Israel is part of their founding charter. And this is the grim choice that Palestinians face today; kleptocratic secularists or anti-semitic fundamentalists. Israel's politicians are no saints but you can't build a Government there without talking to your fellow political parties and this is something that isn't done in the Palestinian territories.

My second argument is against anyone who believes that Gaza and the West Bank would be the happiest places on earth if Israel just left them alone. Anti-Israel sentiment may have given the region's Arab states a common enemy but they were formally and to a degree still are a fractious brotherhood at best. A small state at the crux of Egypt, Jordan and Syria was never going to be free of foreign influence. Even a casual glance at the political history of the Lebanon will tell you that. Usually when people think of failed states their thoughts turn to Africa, they think of Somalia and the Congo, of warlords and guerilla fighters visiting arbitrary destruction on rural villages or lopping limbs off voters. But the African Union actually has a better record when it comes to the peaceful hand-over of democratic power then the Arab League. Maybe if Israel weren't around the citizens of Palestine would live charmed lives of peace and plenty with their democratic rights endorsed and upheld by their Government, but I doubt it. I think a harsh and authoritarian rule by a neighbouring power or one of their own invention would be the most lightly scenario.

My final pro-Israel argument and the one that I feel most passionately about is the savage double standards that Gaza supporters seem to have. Israel's siege of Gaza is inhumane and results in civilian deaths. But there are worse offenders. If you exclude the January Wars then India's stewardship of Kashmir is far more brutal, with 48 civilian deaths this summer alone. Yet when I ask friends who have protested outside the Israeli embassy if they have ever protested outside the Indian one the answer is a uniform no.

So what could Israel do better? I'm a fan of the One-State Solution. Israel and Palestine havn't been at each other's throats constantly for the past 60 years, there have been lulls of peace. And what you find in these lulls is commerce. Palestinians crossing the boarder in search of work and sending remittances home to the benefit of all. Raise the Palestinian's standard of living and watch the extremist support base melt away. Dismantle internal barriers (both physical and bureaucratic) and watch trade and inter-marriages flourish. Prosecute any remaining extremists as domestic criminals. Reorganise the Israeli political system so that it has an upper house (a senate or Seanad) where the elected senators from the Palestinian territories would wield a veto. These suggestions aren't a miracle cure to world's ills, but I think each is a step in a positive direction for a region sorely lacking in positivity.

First Impressions

Hello and welcome to Light Emitting Diatribe, the place for uninitiated discussion of political and economic events form around the globe. I've been meaning to start this blog for a long long time and now that the recession has bestowed upon me an abundance of free time I finally can.

A little about me; my name is Dave, I'm an economics and sociology graduate from Dublin. I am painfully under qualified to give a legitimate opinion on any of the subjects that I will be discussing which means my discussions will be blissfully free of any of that impenetrable academic jargon that professional writers seem to love so much. My main areas of interest are the Middle East and Africa but I also enjoy the politics of Central and South America as well as the small Asian states and quasi-states surrounding China and India.

A lot of people dismiss politics out of hand as boring, having some vague notion that all politics takes place in 5 week long sessions of the UN which produce non-binding resolutions on subjects so obscure that even those directly effected don't care. And they have a point. But underneath the dry flaky crust of professional politics lies a delicious gooey centre of intrigue, dishonour and bald-faced audacity that simply does not exist in any other field. Concentrated in the very human hands of a few presidents and prime-ministers is enough conventional fire power to reduce the world as we know it to a smoking ruin. Add in the unconventional (chemical, biological and nuclear) weapons controlled not just by states but by terrorist cells and other non-state actors the world over and suddenly politics is the opposite of boring. Suddenly it's the story of whether you, or I or any of this is even going to be around tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy reading these meandering thoughts of mine. I'll do my best to keep it interesting. Be sure to leave your own thoughts in the comments box.

Bye for now,
-Dave