October 1997

VIENNA, Austria–On the last day of last month India used its own domestically produced rocket to hurl into orbit a large satellite. Within days the newspapers were full of new Indian-Pakistani gun duels over the bitterly disputed territory of Kashmir. It was all coincidence, but a telling one. No place on earth is more likely to spark a nuclear war than Kashmir. And the rapid progress being made by both Pakistan and India on rocket development brings that final day of sub-continental Armagaddon dangerously closer. Until recently it could be argued that the relatively primitive state of the nuclear-bomb art in both Pakistan and India meant they have engaged in a form of deterrence that the local experts call “recessed.” In other words, their limited nuclear capabilities are not destabilizing– there is no pressing need, now that both have low-level nuclear armories, to join an arms race of nuclear testing,...

Akademiska såväl som massmediala beskrivningar av internationell politik inleds numera med fyra politiskt korrekta påståenden, nämligen a) att vi efter det kalla kriget nästan inte har konflikter eller krig mellan stater utan bara inom dem och b) att dessa i grunden handlar om etnicitet, religion, klaner, identitet eller gammalt hat. För det tredje c) myten om att dessa konflikter nu kommer “upp till ytan” på grund av kommunismens sammanbrott och eftersom att det inte längre finns ett öst- och ett västblock, som tillsammans upprätthåller världsordningen. Slutligen påståendet d) att demokratier är fredliga i den meningen att de inte för krig mot andra demokratier (även om de gör det mot sådana som de själva definierar som odemokratiska). Varför politiskt korrekta? Därför att dessa mytliknande påståenden bevarar och befrämjar en förståelse av världen, som befriar Västvärlden med USA och EU i spetsen från misstankar om att de kunde vara en medverkande orsak...

“It’s easy to militarise societies andstart wars. Powerful people know how to do it. The world hasaccumulated all the needed intellectual and materialresources. Preventing, handling and stopping conflicts and warsis more difficult. We know less about what it requires, andonly tiny resources are allocated by governments. The UN –humanity’s leading conflict-management organisation – hasbeen sidetracked, exhausted and denied the minimum funds forpeacekeeping. The OSCE has a “conflict prevention centre” sosmall that it stands no chance to adequately meet thechallenges ahead,” says TFF director Jan Oberg. “In the fields of post-war reconstruction,reconciliation, peacebuilding where human beings andsocieties move from violence to sustainable peace anddevelopment, the global society is virtually without a clue.It lacks adequate research, organisation, professionals,funds, philosophy and strategy. Only a handful of smallresearch centres work with these tremendously complexprocesses – such as the War-Torn Society Project in Genevaand UNESCO’s Peace Culture programme. The global system is deplorably immature: it...

VIENNA, Austria–Perhaps the day will dawn when an American president gets his lines wrong and says, “We have no quarrel with the government of x, only with the people.” Of course, a big part of the trouble with ex-Yugoslavia is its unscrupulous leadership. But at least an equal part is due to the ethnic immaturity of its people. Ethnic conflict does not, it seems, require great difference or great leaders; small will do in both cases. The conflict began with a clash between Serbia and Croatia, nations with only the smallest difference in geneology, with practically a common language and with much intermarriage. Nevertheless, guilty as the rank and file citizens of ex-Yugoslavia are, without the leaders they have the wars would never have been so well organized or so brutally focussed, nor of such genocidal proportions. Mass killings on this scale, whether it be in ex-Yugoslavia or Rwanda or,...

Snart sagt enhver akademisk og massemedial fremstilling om international politik indledes i dag med fire politisk korrekte påstande, nemlig a) den om at vi efter den Kolde Krig næsten ikke har konflikter eller krige mellem stater men kun inden for dem og b) at de i grunden handler om etnicitet, religion, klaner, identitet eller gammelt had. For det tredje c) myten om at de nu kommer “op til overfladen” ved kommunismens sammenbrud og fordi der ikke længere er en Øst- og en Vestblok, der sammen holden orden, samt d) den om at demokratier er fredelige og ikke bekriger hinanden (men nok dem, de definerer som udemokratiske). Jeg siger politisk korrekte fordi disse mytelignende påstande bevarer og fremmer en forståelse af verden, der befrier Vesten med USA og EU i spidsen for mistanker om at vi kunne være en delårsagen til miséren. Roden til elendighederne skal entydigt søges internt i den...

  Over the last few months, JONATHAN POWER has devoted his thought-provoking weekly columns toissues such as American policies towards Israel, Hong Kong’s fate, Mexico’s elections, and the chances of economictake-off in the Congo. He has argued that it is time to take Turkey into Europe and highlighted the fact that the world’s income distribution is worsening, thanks to globalisation and liberalization. He syndicates his articles with more than 50 newspapers around the world. For 30 years a journalist, of which 17 as columnist for the International Herald Tribune 1974-1991. The value of these critically constructive analyses extend way beyond your transient daily newspaper. Catch up and read them on TFF’s website at http://www.transnational.org. They are also frequently featured on the leading alternative news service, OneWorld http://www.oneworld.org/news/. Here are some excerpts reflecting his grip of world affairs: ON GLOBALISATION“The U.S. President, Bill Clinton and British prime minister, Tony Blair are...

NEW YORK–With righteous Italian anger of the radical variety, Emma Bonino, the European Union’s commissioner for humanitarian aid, has turned on the institution she has long been a passionate supporter of. The UN, she said last week, faces “being tarnished for ever by shame” for its role in the Congo. “The saga of the commission of inquiry into the massacres has surpassed the degree of ridicule it has already earned.” Mrs. Bonino, who directs the world’s biggest budget for humanitarian aid, had better be listened to, for knowing Mrs. Bonino, I can say this, “there’s no fury like this woman scorned.” More to the point, she is right. We need to know what is going through the minds of the (relatively) new UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan and the (brand) new High Commissioner for Human Rights, the former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson. How could the UN just decide to buckle...

VIENNA, Austria–The fuss over Iran–the major investment by the French oil company, Total, and the alleged indirect support of Russia for Iran’s nuclear bomb program–is taking our eyes off the real ball. It was the same three years ago when CIA leaks about North Korea’s bomb ambitions were part of an effort to steamroller President Bill Clinton into ordering the bombing of North Korea’s nuclear installations. The real issue in terms of imminent danger both then and now is the Russian mafia. “The director of the FBI, Louis Freeh, has warned that Russian organized crime networks pose a menace to U.S. national security and has asserted that there is now greater danger of a nuclear attack by some outlaw group than there was by the Soviet Union during the Cold War,” reported the Washington Post last week. In conversation, Munir Ahmed Khan, the former chairman of the world’s nuclear watchdog...

By JONATHAN POWER Washington – DC — Rarely has the U.S.-when out in the countryside – so lost sight of the wood for the trees. Its decision to go into bat the World Trade Organization to deprive the small Caribbean banana producers of their protected European market is one it will come to rue. In the exaggerated name of free trade, but choosing the easiest and most vulnerable of targets, it is setting itself up for social and economic decline and thus chaos in its own back yard. Or, if that is to be averted, the development of cocoa as a substitute crop rather nearer home than Peru’s Rio Huallica valley. Officials in the European Union, conceding defeat last week in the so-called banana war, have been scratching their heads as to why Washington has decided to use a blunderbuss to kill a fly. Surely it cannot be so crude as...