Fragilecologies

Tag: diplomacy

“Is ‘the enemy of my enemy Really my friend?’ Diplomats, corporate leaders, among others, don’t believe everything you think.”

Mickey Glantz. April 8, 2010. Written in Mexico City.

The phrase “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” has always captured my attention for some unknown psychological reason. It has been used in military strategy, business affairs, in personal decisions and in many, many types of human interactions. It is one of those social adages that we can find in all societies like “Look before you leap,” “He who hesitates is lost,” and “Time and tide wait for no man”. Every society has such adages, stated in more form or another. To many they serve as “rule of thumb” principles that in a general way are meant to guide one’s behavior.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is just another one sounds good at first blush. It probably lends itself to being formulated mathematically as a human interactions game in game theory. Maybe that is why it captures my curiosity. I am sure I have used it as a guide in some situations at work and at play. However, I believe it is a flawed consideration or perhaps more correctly an incomplete, “un-thought-out “one.

Historical evidence does suggest that this is as useful a guide to action as it is to inaction. As a result, one must see it in a more critical light. For example, the enemy of your enemy might not really be a friend in a different situation. Governments make deals with other governments or corporations under this guiding notion, even though they find them or their policies reprehensible. So, they end up having made, as they say, “a pact with the devil.” This is similar to what was said about the British Empire: it had no permanent friends. No permanent enemies; only permanent interests.”
British trade deals during World War I

Today, the oppressive government of Kyrgyzstan fell to an uprising in the streets. A deal made with the unpopular president to allow for a US base of operation to support the war in Afghanistan is now at risk as a new president appears. The unpopular decision will likely be revoked and the US become less popular at a time it needs all the friends it can get. A similar situation occurred some years ago with our base in Uzbekistan.

Make any deal with anyone to get what you want, But think about the likely longer term consequences more seriously. What may be true in the short run may turn out to have been a terrible decision in the longer run. Britain’s Chamberlain appeasement of Hitler in the late 1930s obviously failed. US support of bin Laden in Afghanistan against the Soviet invaders in the late 1970s and 1980s is another example. Pakistan’s catering to the Taliban, allowing them to operate from their territory also backfired, as we now see. The Taliban, like the British Empire, has no permanent friends or allies only permanent interests.

Governments must think about this adage when they seek to make agreements with leaders of failed states, rogue nations, and other moves that they consider strategic but really turn out to be only tactical decisions with no longer term sticking power. The adage must be amended to read as follows: THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY FRIEND…BUT ONLY FOR A WHILE. Diplomats, among others, beware of what you are getting into, when you make that pact with the enemy of your enemy. Your reputation as well as the stigma as a result of ‘guilt by association’ will have sticking power and you must live with the adverse consequences that often follow later on.

I am not the only one I guess who feels this way!

April 8, 2010
“The Conference Bully: Some thoughts and observations,” Mickey Glantz. April 6, 2010 (written in Africa in midst of an environment conference).

“The Conference Bully: Some thoughts and observations”

The idea for this editorial came from recent participation in an international conference that involved participants for national governments, multinational organizations and non-governmental organizations. It became apparent that there are strategic as well as tactical ways to participate depending on one’s reasons for attending in the first place. It became clear to me that there was a big difference between a diplomatic negotiator and a diplomatic bully resorting to tactics one might find being used by bigger school boys to intimidate and control behavior of the smaller kids. Before this meeting, I had never thought about the intimidating strategies and tactics in terms of those resorted to by schoolyard bullies.

The conference bully has a goal from the outset which is to intimidate as well as to influence the behavior and oral contributions by other participants who are likely to enter discussions that will take place throughout the several days of conference deliberations.

In the specific conference I attended, one national delegate (as it turned out, the bully) offered the first remarks of the first day as well as the last remarks of the same and succeeding days. His first comment was aggressive, harsh and negative toward the conference organizers (with some personal attacks as well). It seemed that his objective was to derail it by arguing (challenging, really) that the agenda items, the process and the goals were not important to the stated goals of the conference organizers. According to the bully, nothing was done right. To me it seemed that delegate was like a dog peeing on a tree trunk or hydrant in order to mark its territory.

The effect of the content and tone of his early-on interventions was to put the others on notice to be wary about challenging his (country’s?) views. In essence he was suggesting that “if you don’t do as I say, my government won’t listen to your messages” (as if that government would listen anyway; governments will be governments and they tend to have a mind of their own). Besides, in this case, the bully’s country would likely supply a large share of the writers and researchers to the project being discussed.

Not only did he put the delegates on notice about his dominance and sharp tongue at the outset and closing of the first day, he made several (the largest share of comments from the floor) throughout the meeting. His perspectives and comments were treated with care by the chair and reticence by the participants.

He is not the first conference bully I have seen. But, it is the first time I saw them as bullies like those in a schoolyard. They each have a different style designed to influence if not dominate conference behavior and outcomes. Another type I encountered is as follows: a guy would always come late to a workshop or conference, entering in a bumbling, disorganized noticeable way. Everything stops to recognize his presence; he offers an excuse, “I was rethinking what the meeting should really be doing on my way here in the taxi.” He offers to draw some chart on the board and the rest of the meeting refers to that chart. In essence he hijacked the meeting.

Back to the original bully who set off this stream of thought. His attempt was to cause the Secretariat of the conference to be deferential attention him, in away obligating it to consider his numerous explicit comments. Numerous times there were what I saw as implicit threats that the bully’s country might be less supportive morally and financially of the activity being proposed. Many of the bully’s assertions were stated as fact, though they might have been speculative.At one point, when his comment was not accepted by the chair, he re-stated it, by first saying “Apparently the chairman has not been to have his ears tested recently.” I am sure that was embarrassing to the chairman but he just smiled. As chair and as a good diplomat, he had to take it.

The reason my view about his bully nature was that when approached in one-on-one comments, he seemed either not to listen or to care what others were saying. When challenged, he responded on occasion as a pit bull; not giving up.

During breaks in the meeting, several participants from other countries commented on his “offensive behavior.” One participant went on to note that his behavior at this meeting was relatively mild to his behavior at others conferences that they both had attended.

So, while that bully’s government had an apparent hidden agenda and influenced the tone and wording of a final document of this conference, it has also fostered the negative perception of a government trying to bully others to do as it wishes. He may have won a word-smithing battle but lost the larger “war” for respect for his country! And it was MY country.

HAVE YOU WITNESSED A CONFERENCE BULLY?

April 6, 2010
GUEST Editorial: “Brazil-Africa ‘Biofuels Diplomacy’: South-South Relations on the Rise.”

Marcelo Paiva & Tsegay Wolde-Georgis, University of Colorado’s Consortium for Capacity Building. 8 March 2010

Brazil is considered a global leader in sugarcane-based ethanol biofuel production & technology. It made strategic decisions to develop alternative forms of energy for transportation following the crisis and oil embargo in the early 1970s. In 1979, Brazil had developed the first commercial vehicle powered 100 % by ethanol.

The record oil prices of 2007-08 shocked many leaders around the world. Both fuel and then food prices went through the roof both in developed and developing countries. Many developed countries began to introduce, or accelerate approval of, polices that encouraged the development of biofuels, while Brazil found itself in a very advantageous position to export its technology to other developing countries.

While over the years the price of food has gone up, so has the price of fossil-fuels on which the farmers’ machinery relies to work the land. In addition, there is concern about greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning which contributes to the heating of global temperatures and to a constantly changing climate. What’s more, the peak oil clock ticks uninterruptedly so countries cannot expect to rely on non-renewable cheap forms of energy much longer.

The idea that biofuels can rescue us from an irreversible energy crisis is contentious, and the reactions in different parts of the world have been dubious. Some argue that biofuel investment can take away the focus on land for food production, driving food prices up, whereas others argue that marginal lands (read: “unused land”) could be used at a positive net benefit for the environment while boosting infrastructural development in that area. Regions of the world that are perceived as “land rich”, like parts of Africa, became a focus of attention for biofuels investment.

Several countries have been looking to Africa as a new frontier for cost-effective biofuel production, and the issue of peak oil makes energy security a matter of national security for countries like the US, but also for other nations around the world who see fossil-fuel dependence as an obstacle to development. Oil prices, however important, are not the only incentive for biofuel investment; “going green” can also be beneficial for rural community development and revitalization of the rural economy (there are less farmers and more “urban-ers” in the world every year), but also a long-term benefit found in the reliability on renewable-energy. Africa has land and Brazil has the technology and expertise, and the current political administration in Brazil has been championing biofuels diplomacy as an important piece of its foreign policy.

One thing is certain: however stealth to the common energy consumer, the renewable-energy market shift is imminent, and is proving lucrative. As oil giants like Exxon-Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell move to partner with biofuels investors, it highlights new trends in energy development investment in the tropics. Also noteworthy is that Brazil’s biofuel diplomacy is taking place in a very competitive environment: other emerging economies like India and China are pursuing land acquisitions through the purchase and lease of land in Africa to grow biofuels feedstock and for food production geared toward their own domestic consumption. Competitiveness can provide for a very fast-growing market.

In Africa, biofuels could be viewed as the beginning of a brighter future, as a result of investing in renewable energy in countries that have been primarily exporting agricultural products with declining terms of trade. Many African leaders believe that the biofuels revolution will be a new opportunity leading to energy security and revitalization of the agricultural sector in Africa. Most energy sources of rural Africa are currently based on the direct use of biomass such as dung and wood, which are already being used as low-tech biofuel. Liquid biofuels can be a healthy transition into the future if used properly to substitute traditional biomass.

The investment in biofuels also raises questions about the carbon footprint benefit of producing and using biofuels like ethanol from corn or sugarcane, since the overall gain (with current technology and market prices) may be marginal. The diminished carbon footprint, however, is but one argument in favor of biofuel production. As mentioned by Rory Williams in A Definition of Sustainable Mobility, the investment in biofuels provides, in addition to potential for a cleaner environment, the support for other sustainable objectives like improved energy security, through the reduced reliance on fossil fuels, and local job creation.

The South-South partnership such as the one Brazil is pursuing in Africa is a way of maximizing African interests which have historically been exploited by the European neo-colonizers. Like China, Brazil is being utilized by African governments to counter the European infrastructural economic domination.

This increased interest in Africa reveals that it is possible to bring development to Africa and, while biofuels are seen as a profitable activity for investors, it also brings independence from fossil-fuels, economic stability and environmental benefits.

Countries like Angola, Mozambique and Nigeria may well see the biofuels feedstock crops filling their landscapes, but they will hopefully see infrastructural development, employment and technology transfer as well for those working with the biofuels crops in the form of more schools, hospitals, better water treatment facilities and an improved quality of life. For this to ensue in a sustainable way, it is important to pay close attention to the laws and regulations of the African countries.

The current “land grab” competition in Africa is representative of a new trend, but African policy makers must be prepared to cope with unintended consequences of the rush to embrace a new technology. To minimize those adverse side effects, biofuels strategies should incorporate adequate environmental and societal impact assessments. It should also include protection of farmers from being removed from their land (by design or accident) and the protection of ecosystems from a loss of biodiversity in the face of putting land into biofuels production. After all, development also needs to be cultivated with great care in order for it to yield its most positive results.

March 9, 2010