March 1997

LONDON– The western world, in particular Washington and London, is too often besieged by inner hobgoblins who warn it of the threat of militant Islam, rogue nations intent on the development of nuclear and chemical weapons, redoubts of unreformed communism in Cuba and North Korea. Most of it is overstated, an unpersuasive zero sum, often counterproductive. But nobody can exaggerate the danger of Saddam Hussein. He is indeed a “cretin, a monster”–the words of a distinguished French journalist, Jean Daniel, unbelievably now being sued by none other than Saddam Hussein in a French court for “insult and defamation.” “The damned don’t cry,” wrote Eugene O’Neil, “but in this case they never stop trying to make everyone else weep and gnash their teeth. The sheer arrogance of the world’s premier bully is chilling almost beyond belief. Early next month there will be another reminder of Saddam Hussein’s formidable staying power, just when...

LONDON– Most of the world will cheer when the grand dictator of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko, dies. “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones,” said Mark Anthony as he buried Caesar. We too will doubtless happily forget that it was strongman Mobutu that bound the factionist, disintegrating, post- colonial Congo back together, changed its name and made its destiny so important to Cold War-ridden Africa that the Soviet Union, France and the U.S. competed for his favors. Instead we will remember that it was Mobutu who robbed his country blind, who pilfered and wasted away the enormous potential wealth of this country, a country that if it had been properly managed would be as prosperous as perhaps Malaysia or Thailand or, at least, the Philippines today. For every dictator in the world who did his country economic good, Pinochet in Chile, Park...

LONDON– After a difficult and slow start the United Nations war crimes tribunals are hitting their stride. The new UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has purged the incompetents at the Arusha, Tanzania, tribunal and we can expect it now to move more rapidly in bringing to trial the suspects it has in detention, accused mass-murderers from Rwanda. In The Hague this week the trial of three Muslims and a Croat began, accused of war crimes against Serbs at a prison camp in 1992. 74 men have been indicted so far, most of them Serbian. This is all progress, the first faltering steps of a new responsibility for the international community–the extension of the rule of law to the battlefield and its aftermath. Unlike Nuremberg and the Tokyo trials following World War 2 that were wrapped up as soon as their business was complete, there is now a very tangible sense that these...

“The current rhetoric about NATO expansion — exemplified by US Foreign Secretary Madeleine Albright’s recent article in The Economist — is pathetic, and the discourse about it lacks intellectual quality as well as creativity. If advocates of this historic step are unable to find better arguments, the idea itself is probably flawed or, perhaps, indicative of less noble motives. In addition, it is clearly divisive within NATO itself,” states TFF director Jan Oberg. “We now have a tame debate about NATO’s expansion where we ought first to clarify humankind’s post-Cold War needs for conflict-resolution, security, and development and then NATO’s contribution, if any, to new thinking and policies. NATO members failed abysmally as conflict-managers in ex-Yugoslavia 1991-95 and made UN peacekeeping “mission impossible”. Then they deployed NATO — much in need of a raison d’etre and lacking peacekeeping experience — and equated peace with what NATO/SFOR could deliver. NATO expansion...

“The current rhetoric about NATO expansion — exemplified by US Foreign Secretary Madeleine Albright’s recent article in The Economist — is pathetic, and the discourse about it lacks intellectual quality as well as creativity. If advocates of this historic step are unable to find better arguments, the idea itself is probably flawed or, perhaps, indicative of less noble motives. In addition, it is clearly divisive within NATO itself,” states TFF director Jan Oberg. “We now have a tame debate about NATO’s expansion where we ought first to clarify humankind’s post-Cold War needs for conflict-resolution, security, and development and then NATO’s contribution, if any, to new thinking and policies. NATO members failed abysmally as conflict-managers in ex-Yugoslavia 1991-95 and made UN peacekeeping “mission impossible”. Then they deployed NATO — much in need of a raison d’etre and lacking peacekeeping experience — and equated peace with what NATO/SFOR could deliver. NATO expansion...

LONDON– That President Bill Clinton, commander-in-chief of the world’s one remaining superpower, might dare to risk his country’s self- interest in financial and political prudence by personally wooing monetary support for his re-election bid from Chinese, Thai and Indonesian businessmen and women, all with close ties to their governments, is by the yardstick of common probity boggling to the imagination. This is the age of what Moises Naim has called “corruption eruption” that has shaken “every region regardless of cultural background or Gross National Product.” The last eighteen months have seen the fall of the Secretary-General of NATO over corruption allegations, indictments for corruption of one-third of India’s cabinet, graft charges against Italy’s most prominent post-war prime ministers and two former South Korean presidents; parliamentary investigations into financial abuses by the heads of government of Colombia, Pakistan and Turkey, graft at high levels of government in Japan, not to mention the...