Lincoln Mitchell

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This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Posted in: Foreign Policy

The Import of Speaking Publicly About Democracy in Georgia

For most of the time since Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003, concerns about the increasingly less democratic nature of Georgia’s regime, which people in Washington began to notice sometime around 2008, were always raised privately. A trip to Tbilisi by a visiting U.S. official would include public congratulations to the Georgian government for its democratic credentials, while concerns about the lack of media freedom, recent electoral or legal shenanigans, or the growing centralization of political power were made privately and discreetly. Similarly, Georgian officials visiting Washington were publicly greeted with platitudes about the strength of Georgian democracy, while concerns were, again, raised privately These warnings were generally politely ignored by the Georgian government who continued doing as it pleased while seeking to persuade the Georgian people that Saakashvili was uniquely able to win financial and political support for Georgia.

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Public Opinion and the War in Afghanistan

It should not be axiomatic that if the American people, by a margin of greater than two to one disapprove of a war, than the U.S. should end that war. However, if public opinion runs that strongly against a war, or any foreign policy, the U.S. government should have a clear, compelling and realistic rationale for pursuing that policy. Unfortunately, no such rationale exists for the war in Afghanistan. After more than a decade of war, and despite some significant accomplishments, most notably the killing of Osama Bin Laden, victory in Afghanistan remains poorly defined and elusive.

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The Confusing Language of Democracy

One of the reasons building lasting democracies, either from the perspective of democratic activists inside of a non-democratic country, or from outside powers seeking to push a given country further towards democracy is so difficult is because the language which is used to describe concepts related to democracy take on different meanings in different countries and political systems. Concepts like elections, corruption, legislature, campaigns or opposition, do not mean the same thing in consolidated democratic countries as they do elsewhere.

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Russia's Non-Competitive Elections

The Russian election occurred on Sunday with results that were consistent with what most people expected. Vladimir Putin won the election handily among widespread reports of election fraud, inflated vote totals from the northern Caucasus region of Russia, and general electoral misconduct. Putin, according to official reports, won roughly 63% of the vote, which was a higher proportion of the vote than some had anticipated, but his huge margin of victory, a full 45 points more than second place finisher Gennady Zyuganov, was less of a surprise.

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Koran Burning and the U.S. Role in Afghanistan

The latest round of violence in Afghanistan demonstrates the need to continue to withdraw from Afghanistan as quickly as possible. The immediate cause of this upsurge in violence has been the burning of Korans by American troops. President Obama, in a fit of decency, apologized for American actions that could be generously described as insensitive. Obama’s apology was met by attacks from, among others, Newt Gingrich, arguing essentially that the U.S. should never have to apologize for anything. This argument is axiomatically wrong, but it is also very disturbing. Being truly patriotic means loving and caring about your country enough that when those ideals are violated you want your country to act accordingly. Believing you never need to apologize is territory best left to megalomaniacs and bullies, qualities we do not need in an American president.

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Intervention and Non-Intervention in Syria

As the brutal suppression of opponents of Bashar al-Assad by supporters of his regime in Syria continues, the U.S. and other western powers are faced, yet again, with the question of whether or not to intervene in a violent North African conflict that, absent western intervention, could lead to even more violent deaths and suppression. The similarities between the dilemma facing the U.S. in Syria in 2012 and the one it faced roughly a year ago in Libya is, while not the same, quite similar, at least in some respects.

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Putin's Diminishing Options

The air of invulnerability which surrounded the Putin regime during most of its first decade in power has been replaced by uncertainty. Putin may, indeed, remain in power after the election, but he will have to use means other than personal popularity and a growing economy to buttress his repressive regime. Without these assets, it would seem that Putin is faced with several options: liberalize and allow the opposition to win something, do nothing and hope for the best, or crackdown more to ensure that the regime stays in place for the short term.

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Iran, Syria and Egypt

The U.S. is asking, without success, for the Iranian, Syrian, Russian and Chinese governments to do things that, from their perspective, are not in their interests. It is not really a big surprise that Iran is not giving up their weapons because the U.S. wants them to or that Moscow and Beijing are less anxious than the U.S. to call for a leader to resign because he has used excessive force on the citizens of his own country. The U.S., on the other hand, is asking Egypt to do something that is neither against their interests nor a very big reques

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The Russian and U.S. Presidential Elections

The U.S. response to events in Russia in March will be complicated by another presidential election, the one in the U.S. While President Obama will have to respond to events in Russia in a thoughtful way taking into consideration a range of issues, Republicans will use these events as an opportunity to portray Obama as soft on Russia. Talking tough on Russia will be a good way for likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney to strengthen his support in at least one part of the Republican base.

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The 2012 Election and U.S. Democracy

Fidel Castro, who has not had much experience with political competition of any kind has referred to the Republican primary campaign as a “competition of idiocy and ignorance.” Sadly, the longtime Cuban leader has a point. The race to the intellectual bottom and the loutish demonstrations of intolerance which havecharacterized the Republican race for the presidential nomination has been entertaining but also disturbing. Four years ago, the world saw the American political process at its best as the American people peacefully turned the page on the disastrous Bush administration and elected a new and very different president. The race this year, at least on the surface, is very different, but there are still elements of the campaign which demonstrate the strength and resilience of democratic systems of governance.

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New Approaches for Election Fairness

It is not clear that the U.S. is able to influence the degree of election fairness in entrenched semi-democratic or semi-authoritarian regimes, but it is clear that the current approaches are no longer sufficient. The tools which are necessary to push countries to better elections are no longer simply help with election lists and other straightforwardly technical tactics, but include things like concrete political pressure linked to consequences, a willingness to publicly urge foreign leaders to conduct fair elections, and intervene more frequently when government abuses occur in the pre-election period. The politics of doing these things in countries that are allies is very complicated. It is unlikely, for example, that the U.S. government in Washington or Tbilisi is going to link assistance to Georgia, a country that has more than 1,000 troops in Afghanistan, to fair elections, or that leaders of American allies will be publicly chastised for things like arresting opposition activists or threatening opposition supporters, but unless the U.S. is willing to do these things, its ability to push countries to better elections will be severely limited.

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Does Mitt Romney Really Think Europe is the Enemy

While Romney is not the first Republican to use anti-European rhetoric in this manner, he is also no longer just a Republican politician. He is one of the two people most likely to be president of the U.S. in 53 weeks. Coming from a potential president, these kinds of jibes against Europe should be seen differently. Romney may legitimately believe that European style social democracy is bad for the U.S., or as is more likely, believe that caricaturing European policies is much easier than explaining his party’s policies of anti-poor class warfare of the last generation. Nonetheless, it is very dangerous for an American president to not have a full understanding of the value of the U.S. relationship with many European countries, or to jeopardize that relationship through over-heated campaign slogans.

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The Georgian Government's Goldilocks Problem

The Georgian government has very cleverly exploited this situation, frequently complaining to both foreign and domestic audiences that Georgia lacks a serious and powerful opposition. The government has, of course, complained about the opposition being too weak while simultaneously working to ensure that this remains the case. Thus, the Georgian government has been able to deflect criticisms of one party dominance by arguing the self-fulfilling prophecy that due to the UNM’s popularity nobody was able to pose a plausible challenge. This explanation has been useful and accurate for several years.

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Russia and Putin in 2012

While it is clearly too early to know what will happen in Russia, there are several aspects to the current situation in Russia which could become increasingly significant as the current political crisis in Russia unfolds. First, when faced with a domestic political crisis, leaders often seek to identify an external enemy at whose feet to lay the blame for internal problems. This can take the form of rhetoric and propaganda, but it can also manifest itself through military actions. The Russian regime has already sought to increase its anti-American rhetoric, as it has done periodically throughout the last decade or so. This time, this approach has not been very effective. Efforts by Putin to depict the demonstrations as a western conspiracy have largely failed.

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The Sum of Obama's Foreign Policy Parts

The problem the Obama administration faces, both politically and substantively, is that while it has numerous foreign policy accomplishments to which it can point, the whole to which they add up remains less than the sum of its parts. For example, while the killing of Bin Laden is something about which Americans are rightfully happy, and the conclusion of the military effort in Iraq, while almost a decade late and a few trillion dollars short, is also a good thing for the U.S., the overall impact these things have on American security, stability in South Asia or the Middle East or other related issues is less clear.

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Something is Happening and You Don't Know What It Is, Do You Mr. Putin?

Putin’s strongman regime has long drawn its legitimacy not from winning free, fair and competitive elections, but by the popularity of Putin himself and the strength of the regime. Both of these things are now drawn into question by the poor showing of Putin’s United Russia party in the polls and the newly discovered increased willingness on the part of ordinary Russians to protest against Putin’s rule. Even if these protests do not lead to any significant change, the people of Russia may no longer view Putin’s rule as inevitable or unassailable. Accordingly, the Russian government will have to respond to these demonstrations either by liberalizing somewhat or by taking a more authoritarian turn. The latter approach is considerably more likely, but even that offers little guarantee of stability for Putin and his supporters. The current demonstrations, after all, occurred in spite of an increasingly unfree media and civic environment in Russia. Limiting these freedoms even more will not be easy, especially now.

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The Future of Elections in Russia

In last Sunday’s election for the Russian Duma, the ruling United Russia party, while winning a clear plurality of the votes did considerably more poorly than many expected. United Russia’s vote total is hovering around 50%, but the party will still maintain a clear majority in the national legislature. Additionally, this election occurred in a media and civic context that was far from free or open; and there have been numerous accounts of various kinds of election fraud during the voting. Following the closing of the polls there have been demonstrations in Moscow and elsewhere as the Russian people express their discontent about having another election stolen. Taken together this means that for the Russian leadership, more or less everything that could have gone wrong with the election did.

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In Egypt, Don't Blame the Elections

In the recently concluded Egyptian elections Islamists combined for roughly 60% of the vote. Although this is the beginning of a reasonably complex process to form the lower house of the Egyptian parliament, this outcome suggests that Islamist parties will be well represented in that legislative body. Accordingly, it is likely that the post-Arab Spring Egypt may adapt a foreign policy to the west and to Israel that differs sharply from that of Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt. Moreover, it is all but inevitable that the legislature will adapt laws and policies that are illiberal and will not sit comfortably with western democrats.

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Occupy Wall Street and American Soft Power

Every image of a New York City or Oakland policeman abusing his position, every story about how a veteran or senior citizen was injured by one of these policeman, every image of a university police officer casually pepper spraying a few college students doing nothing more than sitting quietly at a demonstration damages the ability of the U.S. to influence people and governments around the world and provides fodder for those authoritarian leaders who would like to ignore American entreaties before killing or beating up demonstrators in their own countries.

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Perry, Cain and Paul and the Future of American Foreign Policy

To a significant extent, the more interesting foreign policy developments in the election do not have much to do with either of the two men who are likely to be there party’s nominees. These developments may also have more bearing on 2016 than 2012. Nonetheless, at least three Republican candidates, Ron Paul, Rick Perry and Herman Cain have made statements, or taken positions on foreign policy that could prove important harbingers of the future of the foreign policy debate in the U.S.

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