Lincoln Mitchell

Blog

This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Posted in: Foreign Policy

Why Calling Countries "Strategically Important" is Hurting US Foreign Policy

There’s also some truth to this. All countries, particularly from America’s point of view, have some strategic value. The problem with this approach is that if all countries have strategic importance, then no country has strategic importance and all countries are of equal import. Strategic value only has meaning if it is a relative term, and referring to a country as strategically important only means something if it is considered more or less strategic than other countries.

Comment

What the Georgia-Russia War Did and Didn't Change

The Russia Georgia war in a paradoxical way changed everything and changed nothing. Accordingly, determining the real impact of the war can be a puzzling task. The initial fears articulated in Tbilisi and Washington last August have proven false. The dominoes did not tumble throughout the former Soviet Union; a new Cold War did not occur, President Mikheil Saakashvili is still in power in Georgia; and Russia did not take over Georgia. Although these extreme scenarios did not come to pass, something did change.

Comment

Supporting Democracy Without Understanding It

The idea that aggregating preferences of ordinary people, treating all people equally and allowing a substantial amount of political rights to everybody is the best way to organize society is a new one for most of the world, and one which still strikes people as strange. I know this from my own experience doing political work in dozens of countries. In every one of these countries, the U.S. included, I have heard people, including people in positions of influence and power, remark that the citizens of their country are somehow not smart enough, educated enough or prepared enough for democracy.

Comment

Barack Obama: Our First Post Post-Cold War President

As our first post-Cold War president, Bill Clinton was faced with an entirely new content for international politics when he came into office in 1993. Now, sixteen years later, Barack Obama comes to office as our first post post-Cold War President. And while the end of the Cold War was a major international news story, the end of the post-Cold War period is much less clear or decisive. If the Cold War ended with a bang, the post-Cold War ended with a whimper (or perhaps a tweet). And now that the post-Cold War paradigm is no longer our frame for international relations, President Obama is operating in a vastly different foreign policy environment than either of his two predecessors were.

Comment

Kyrgyzstan: How America Gained a Base and Lost a Country

The democratic hopes–as well as the more widespread, but less focused, hopes that Akaev’s resignation would lead to a better life for the Kyrgyz people–had melted away almost entirely. Instead, government, political, and civic leaders whom I spoke to, many of whom I had last seen four years earlier when a sense of real change was possible, talked sadly of lost opportunities, the rise of a more repressive regime, and the violent nature of Kyrgyz politics. Few had much hope for the future. The presidential election, which was only a few weeks away at that time, was broadly understood as a foregone conclusion. Most people assumed that the intimidation and fraud which had already begun would only get stronger as the voting got closer. They were right–the election saw Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev reelected with about 88% of the vote in a deeply flawed election that was neither free nor fair.

Comment

Kyrgzstan: How Trading Democracy for Stability Actually Doesn't Work

Stability is the last refuge of many non-democratic leaders, but there’s little evidence that these leaders can ensure stability in their own countries or internationally. As Rice pointed out, supporting stability over democracy in the Middle East has often led to greater instability. The Shah was supposed to bring stability to Iran and to the region at large, but many of the region’s current problems are actually linked to that regime and to U.S support. Throughout the Arab world, authoritarian regimes have also shown that they are unable to deliver stability. This isn’t only true in the Muslim world. Does anybody think that the strongman regime of Vladimir Putin has brought stability to the former Soviet Union? Stability in Russia itself is far from guaranteed, particularly given recent events in the North Caucasus.

Comment

Can Biden Thread the Georgian Needle?

Biden’s challenge is to thread the needle of asserting continued American support for Georgian sovereignty while taking a more sober view of the true nature of domestic politics in Georgia. Demonstrating that while the U.S. remains committed to supporting Georgia, the U.S. also understands, and is concerned about, the shortcomings of Georgian democracy, the role of the Georgian government in those shortcomings and why this is so bad for Georgia, will show Russia, and the world, that the new American administration has a more sound and less personality and ideology based understanding of the world than the Bush administration did. This is the kind of reset U.S. Russian relations needs.

Comment

Foreign Policy Limbo: Can Obama Get Us Out?

The major questions Obama faces with regards to cleaning up after President Bush are tactical and strategic–how to best wind down the war in Iraq, stabilize Pakistan, and staunch the global economic bleeding. There are, of course, also specific global hot spots where conflicts have been going on for decades, such as Kashmir and the Israel-Palestine conflict, where Obama will try to succeed where his predecessors have largely failed.

Comment

Why Obama's Foreign Policy Looks So Much Like Bush's

Thanks to the U.S. constitution and political realities, mercifully we will never know what a third Bush term would have looked like. But judging from the last year of the Bush administration, it’s possible to have some sense of what Bush would have done if he had stayed in office beyond January 2009. It’s not hard to imagine that Bush would have committed to gradual rather than complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and an increased effort — Bush might have used the term “surge” — in Afghanistan. A Bush-Medvedev summit in 2009 might well have resulted in a moderate commitment to reducing nuclear weapons; words, but no action, on democracy and the superiority of the American system to the Russian one; and an agreement to disagree about issues such as NATO expansion and Georgia.

Comment

Why Teheran Is Not Tiananmen

For Iran’s theocrats, the Tiananmen model must have seemed very appealing. Seen through the eyes of an authoritarian, Tiananmen was a success, one crackdown, and several hundred deaths helped keep the Chinese Communist regime in power for what has now been two decades. Given the number of authoritarian regimes which have collapsed in since 1989, the appeal of the Chinese model seems even clearer. For Iran, the lessons from other countries, for example, the Soviet Union, Chile or even several post-Soviet states, is that failing to crack down or trying to negotiate some kind of compromise ends with defeat. For the Iranian regime, based on these experiences, the decision was easy.

Comment

Iran and the Democracy Panopticon

What we are seeing in Iran demonstrates that, at least some of the time, people know when their votes have been stolen. Outside observers may be able to draw more attention to this, or reveal the machinations by which election fraud occurs, but they may only be rarely telling people who have voted something they do not already know.

Comment

Obama, Europe and Anti-Americanism

Today, anti-Americanism in Europe has receded a great deal. Anti-Americanism, as President Obama’s advisor David Axelrod pointed out, “isn’t cool anymore.” This is very fortunate for the U.S. because if it was still cool, the tide of anti-Americanism in Europe today would very likely make that of 2003-2005 look like a Fourth of July picnic. During those years, anti-Americanism was spurred by U.S. foreign policy which, as bad as it might have been, had very little effect on the day-to-day lives of most Europeans. Today, the continent is in the throes of a major economic recession which many would like to blame on the U.S. The implosion of the overheated U.S. economy with its seemingly infinite market for a broad range of consumer goods has dragged down huge segments of global trade while the subprime mortgage problems have created a ripple effect which has devastated the world’s finances. This should be the language of the new anti-Americanism, but so far, it has yet to materialize.

Comment

Continuity or Change-Obama and Democracy Assistance

During the transition between administrations and the first few months of the Obama presidency, there has been a lot of talk — in Washington think tanks, universities and the foreign policy blogosphere — about how democracy assistance policy will be different in the new administration. The assumption for many was that the Bush administration had, if not started democracy assistance policies, then taken them to a new level of intensity which would be scaled back by a less ideological and more multilateral Obama presidency.

Comment

Adjusting Election Expectations

Recognizing the evolving nature and role of elections is important not so much because, as many opponents of elections argue, elections are inherently dangerous if a country is not “ready” for them. Down that road lies condescension and eternal international administration. Rather, donor countries need to understand that elections are no longer major events which require refocusing all other projects for eighteen months. Too frequently when an election is called in a semi-authoritarian country, money pours in for election-related work, but gets siphoned from other, lower profile, longer horizon type projects which often are more likely to impact the overall democratic progress of that country. Elections cannot, and should not be ignored, nor should we urge countries not to have them if we (whoever that is) think they are not ready, but it is important to adjust our expectations and policies to reflect the relatively muted impact elections have on democratic development in many increasingly authoritarian settings.

Comment

The First 100 Days: A Whole That Is Greater Than Its Parts →

Placing Obama's first 100 days in context is important because for the first 100 days, at least, the whole outweighs the sum of its parts. Not only have Obama's first 100 days been by far the best of any president of my lifetime, but they began not a day too soon. The country was reeling economically, directionless in foreign policy, losing credibility and support abroad and suffering a crisis of confidence at home when Obama became president. Obama has begun to turn all of this around. Moreover, even though Obama has not been a constant optimist in the White House he has restored confidence both abroad and domestically as most Americans believe our new president is, for the most part, leading us in the right directions. There have also been a range of less high profile issues including stem cell research, national service, allowing science back into policy and, frankly, bringing a sense of normalcy back to Washington, for which Obama also deserves credit. Ultimately, what stops Obama from getting an A is his approach to addressing finance and banking issues, so his final grade is A-.

Comment

Anti-Terror Strategy after the War on Terror →

Rudy Giuliani seems to have joined Dick Cheney among the ranks of political has beens who still think President Obama will make us more vulnerable to a terrorist attack because he prefers a more thoughtful approach to the bluster and fear tactics upon which the previous administration relied. While Giuliani's comments, specifically his arguments that, based on Obama's address to the Iranian people, "terrorists will say, we can take advantage of the guy (Obama)," and attack the US, should not be taken too seriously, they offer an interesting insight not just into a man whose moment has come and gone, but into how political epochs come and go. The ridicule which greeted Cheney's comments and the comparative silence that greeted Giuliani's indicate that the War on Terror is over. President Obama's decision to abandon the term only underscores this.

Comment

Obama and the G-20 →

The story is not, for many reasons, quite as simple as this. The G20 Summit is occurring in the midst of a global economic crisis of historic proportions, one which raises important, although far from identical, problems for all of the countries participating in the summit. Due to the impact of the downturn in the US and the effect on the rest of the world of the American bubble bursting, Obama is forced into a very strange position, one that is part rock star and part Dr. Doom. The American president whose personal story and style exudes optimism will be, to a substantial extent, playing the role of pessimist, or realist, at the summit, as he must not seek to minimize the seriousness of the economic problems we all face.

Comment

Reeling in Russia

Russia is not, at this time, a democracy, nor is it likely to become one anytime soon. The restriction on individual, associational and media freedoms, the close relationships between business and the government and the weakness of the rule of law are just some of the things that preclude Russia from being called a democracy. Moreover, it is inaccurate to continue to view Russia as a country in transition. The regime seems quite stable; with little real movement towards democracy. Russia is a largely consolidated illiberal semi-authoritarian regime.

Comment

Viewing Georgia, Without the Rose Colored Glasses

The war between Russia and Georgia has receded from the front pages, but the questions it has raised are still urgent. Russia’s aggression toward Georgia, which greatly exceeded what was necessary to achieve its stated goals, and Moscow’s continuing efforts to weaken and destabilize Georgia, make it clear that Russia is a real threat to several U.S. allies. From Azerbaijan to Latvia, the Kremlin’s actions have been duly noted. The next American administration will confront the fallout of this war and face a hard challenge: It is not possible to craft Georgia policy without looking at the broader U.S.-Russia policy, while it is not possible to craft a broader U.S.-Russia policy without recognizing the role the U.S. plays in creating tension between Russia and Georgia.

Comment

Obama, McCain and Russia's War on Georgia →

While I have lived, worked and frequently visited Georgia since 2002 and have written extensively on Georgian politics, I am not going to address the specifics of the conflict here. Instead, it might be useful to explore some of the questions which the conflict between Georgia and Russia raises for domestic politics in the US. The conflict has, appropriately, led to debate online and elsewhere about the limits, impact and attitudes of American power foreign policy. It has also, again not unsurprisingly, become an issue in the presidential race as Senator McCain has responded with blustery statements stressing Russian aggression and the need to defend Georgia, while Senator Obama has emphasized these points, but also stressed the need for partnership with Europe on this issue.

Comment