2nd Quarter 2017 Volume 8, No. 2

Editor’s Picks

America’s Strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean?, Toward a US Air Force Arctic Strategy, IPCC and IPBES– Establishment and Significance, Flawed Democracy: The Bane of Ghana’s Success in Curbing Corruption, Air Mobility Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa

Rémy M. Mauduit

Articles

Sectarianism after the Arab Spring

An Exaggerated Spectre

Barah Mikaïl, PhD

America’s Strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean

R. Evan Ellis, PhD

Toward a US Air Force Arctic Strategy

Col John L. Conway III, USAF, Retired

The Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Establishment and Significance

Steinar Andresen

G. Kristin Rosendal, PhD

Flawed Democracy

The Bane of Ghana’s Success in Curbing Corruption

Kofi Nsia-Pepra, PhD

Air Mobility Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa

Maj Ryan McCaughan, USAF

Editor’s Picks

America’s Strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean?, Toward a US Air Force Arctic Strategy, IPCC and IPBES–Establishment and Significance, Flawed Democracy: The Bane of Ghana’s Success in Curbing Corruption, Air Mobility Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa

Professor Evan Ellis posits in America’s Strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean? that it is time to consider how to engage with Latin America and the Caribbean more effectively, for both the United States and those partner nations and the family with whom we share the region. No other region of the world more directly affects the prosperity and security of the United States. No other region of the world trades more with, or has more investments from the United States, than Latin America and the Caribbean. By implication, there is no region which more directly affects continuing American economic security and prosperity. Dr. Ellis emphasizes that the US engagement with the region should focus on the importance of partnerships with the countries of the region, based on mutual respect. Moreover, the United States should evaluate the dynamics of Latin America and the Caribbean and its own actions in the region in the context of the greater set of global relationships and conditions in which the region is situated.

In Toward a US Air Force Arctic Strategy, Col John L. Conway III, USAF, retired, argues that an Air Force Arctic strategy should complement the Department of Defense Arctic Strategy with Air Force capabilities and should highlight in-place USAF assets, and identify those that rapidly can be deployed to the Arctic. It also should design partnerships with sister services and other High North nations to assure safety and security in accordance with international law and agreements within the Arctic Council. He concludes that without an Air Force Arctic strategy to articulate its “way ahead” and to remain silent on issues that are clearly within the Air Force’s purview is to allow other services to dictate its roles and missions.

Most major regional and global environmental agreements are equipped with scientific advisory panels, state Mr. Steinar Andresen and Dr. G. Kristin Rosendal in The Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Establishment and Significance, suggesting that the most comprehensive and sophisticated one is probably the IPCC. Research indicates that such panels are necessary but not sufficient to secure effective management. Somewhat peculiar, the biodiversity regime was not equipped with a scientific panel until the IPBES was established in 2011.

For Professor Kofi Nsia-Pepra, democracy is widely expected to restrain corruption. Ghana, however, is an exception with cancerous corruption. Ghana’s exceptionalism is simply due to its mischaracterization by Freedom House as a full democracy rather than flawed democracy as appropriately characterized by the Economic Intelligence Unit. The mischaracterization has masked the exploration of the correlation between Ghana’s so-called “democracy” and its endemic corruption despite the numerous scholarly works. In the theme developed by Dr. Pepra in Flawed Democracy. The Bane of Ghana’s Success in Curbing Corruption, he recommends good governance encapsulating political will, ethical leadership and environment, effective laws, agencies, administration and deterrent punishment as fundamental to curbing corruption in Ghana.

In Air Mobility Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa, Maj Ryan McCaughan, USAF, analyzes the challenges associated with airlift in sub-saharan Africa, how the United States and partners have attempted to address these issues in the past, and why those attempts have been insufficient. A qualitative research methodology has been utilized to show that the status quo model of support has proven insufficient and expensive and only through a comprehensive, coordinated approach, which aligns the efforts of the United States, the African Union, US industry, capable African partners, and other interested Western nations, will this problem finally be resolved.

Rémy M. Mauduit, Editor Air and Space Power Journal–Africa and Francophonie
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Sectarianism after the Arab Spring

An Exaggerated Spectre

Barah Mikaïl, PhD*

Sectarianism has experienced a boost in the aftermath of popular uprisings in the Arab world. Recent sectarian strife following the fall of Arab authoritarian leaders has been provoked by ideological rifts between Islamists and secularists and between conservatives and liberals, as well as by religious divisions between Sunnis and Shias, Muslims and Christians. However, the rise of sectarian strife in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings has also been stoked by geopolitical strategies as power vacuums create opportunities for political ambitions and agendas. While sectarianism is real and bears important risks, it is not the main driver of divisions in the region. The West must not lose sight of the fact that many regimes are stirring up sectarianism while neglecting other cleavages, such as regional agendas, a lack of respect for human rights, corruption, and poor economic conditions.

Yet, however manipulated it may be, the rise of sectarianism in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region risks undermining the prospects for building peaceful and stable democratic societies in the Arab world. This raises several questions. How are political players favoring and instrumentalizing the reawakening of traditional religious and denominational cleavages? How have governments in the region responded? And what could Europe and the international community do to reduce sectarianism’s potential to spoil peaceful democratic transitions?

Deepening Traditional Rifts

Even though sectarianism in the MENA region is not new, it has acquired alarming dimensions in a changing regional context. Many analyses of sectarianism in the MENA region concentrate on the religious and political divergences between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran. Saudis and Iranians are mutually defiant regional strategic rivals. In a similar vein, other Arab Gulf countries are preoccupied by Iran’s connections with Shia Arabs and Tehran’s growing influence in the region due to its strong presence in post–Saddam Hussein Iraq and its alliances with the Syrian government and the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Naturally, when the Arab Spring opened new avenues of regional influence, tensions between Iran and the Gulf countries mounted. Tehran initially expressed its satisfaction over the toppling of Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. From Iran’s point of view, the Arab people’s decision to oust their pro-Western leaders was good news. Tehran’s attitude changed, however, when riots erupted on the territory of its closest Arab ally, Syria. This confirmed Arab Gulf countries’ suspicions that Iran’s praise of the uprisings had only been in pursuit of its strategic interests.

Suspicions based on confessional divergences and the presumed political agendas behind them also prevailed in domestic debates in several MENA countries. In Tunisia and Egypt, the opponents of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and Salafist parties deplored their presumed pro-Sunni Islamist financial support from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In Bahrain, which is led by a Sunni minority, Shia-dominated antiregime riots led the Bahraini and several neighboring governments to accuse Iran of interference. Similar accusations were made by Saudi Arabia when riots erupted in the country’s Shia-dominated east.

Divisions also abound beyond the apparent Sunni-Shia rift. In the United Arab Emirates, despite the absence of demonstrations, the state apparatus alleged risks of a regional rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and criticized the speeches of the Qatar-supported preacher Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi. By doing so, Emiratis denounced the way some regional countries (Qatar and Saudi Arabia in particular) stood ready to support groups with religious-led agendas in order to strengthen their own regional influence.

The deepening of historic sectarian rifts in the region was accelerated by the Arab Spring, but its onset goes further back. In Iraq, sectarian strife has been rampant since the fall of Saddam in 2003. The Iraqi central government remains weak, struggling to ensure national unity. The rise of a strong Kurdish presence in the north and a Shia bastion in the south saw the Sunnis of the center squeezed between strong rivaling regional factions. During the Israeli-Lebanese war in the summer of 2006, several of Hezbollah’s critics, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, and some members of the European Union (EU), judged Iran to be behind Hezbollah’s actions. In the Maghreb, diplomatic relations between Morocco and Iran were suspended in 2009 after Morocco accused Iran of attempts to convert Moroccans to Shiism. In the aftermath of the 2011–12 power shifts, several Arab countries now fear that such sectarian tendencies could reach and destabilize their own territories. Several governments in the region have therefore felt pressure to respond to these developments in order to avoid possible spillovers.

Between Containment and Instrumentalization

Since the toppling of some of their authoritarian peers, Arab leaders have been keen to avoid spillovers of two sorts: revolutionary regime change and a loss of social cohesion through sectarian strife. The Tunisia-originated wave of popular unrest has affected most Arab countries with only a few exceptions. By underlining their own importance for maintaining stability, threatened Arab leaders have contained and instrumentalized sectarian tensions at the same time.

Following Ben Ali’s fall and the spread of uprisings, Arab leaderships across the region adopted strict measures to contain demonstrations domestically, usually under the pretext of preserving national security. At the same time, Arab leaders’ overemphasis on the dangers of sectarianism conveniently served their purpose of safeguarding ruling elites’ hold on power. The risk of sectarian splits is real and present in several Arab countries. In Lebanon, sectarian strife between Sunnis and Alawites in Beirut and in the north of the country has resurfaced. Nevertheless, Arab governments have adroitly instrumentalized the tangible dangers of sectarianism to keep a lid on protests.

In Saudi Arabia, repression of timid uprisings in the east of the country was portrayed by the rulers as a struggle against Shia-led sedition. A similar public diplomacy strategy was adopted in Bahrain, where violence extended to a wider scale. Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh referred to tensions between communities as a plot aimed at destabilizing and dividing the country.

Sectarian tensions have assumed the most alarming proportions in Syria, where riots quickly turned to violence between Sunnis and Shia Alawites. The Syrian regime exerted harsh repression and justified its acts by the threat of a “foreign conspiracy.” The sectarian argument eventually served the Bashar al-Assad regime in its efforts to curtail the dynamics of protests by keeping people away from the streets. In Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, sectarianism was used as a pretext to criticize Iran’s growing role in the region. Most significantly, the Gulf Cooperation Council offered membership to Jordan and Morocco. Though still in abeyance, this intended “alliance of the Arab kingdoms” can be understood as a way of building a “Sunni alliance” in opposition to Iran and its supposed “pan-Shiite” regional expansion strategy.

Wielding the argument of sectarianism is a powerful tool as it frightens many communities in the Arab world—such as the Berbers in North Africa. Both sectarian and interreligious tensions between Christians and Muslims present threatening scenarios in several countries, including between Copts and Sunni Muslims in Egypt, as well as in Lebanon and Iraq, where sectarian divisions are reflected in public institutions.

Nevertheless, the instrumentalization of sectarianism could also turn against rulers and their interests. Drawing attention to sectarian tensions runs the risk that such schemes will be appropriated and reinforced by the population in a self-fulfilling prophecy. The same applies to the current overemphasis of media reporting and analysis on confessional, ethnic, and tribal affiliations. Overemphasizing these issues as a major source of regional identity questions the integrity of the nation-state and may potentially weaken national cohesion and favor disintegration.

How to Respond

Many international actors in the region have been taken in by the spectre of sectarianism. The United States and the EU were the first to buy into such a reading. In so doing, Western countries risk missing important nuances. Sectarian affiliations are a reality, and so is a certain conflict potential inherent to them. But sectarian strife is not the most pressing challenge faced by today’s Arab world.

The uprisings clearly show that political and socioeconomic grievances are at the center of people’s demands. In Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, initial demonstrations were based on demands for change from wide sectors of society—including youth, the unemployed, and regime defectors—without strong sectarian affiliations or considerations. The quest for a better future and for new political rules was the main fuel for their demands. Whatever tribe, clan, religion, sect, or ethnic group they belonged to, citizens asked for “dignity” before anything else. It was only over time that sectarian tendencies came to the forefront. As transitions appeared to be regressing, people increasingly chose to identify themselves along tribal or confessional lines rather than political ones.

The international community should have learned a number of lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan. After being invaded, both countries experienced a deepening of internal sectarian tensions. This was largely due to an overemphasis on the role of sectarian communities in transition processes. Instead of placing trust in either country’s own potential for national transcommunitarian cohesion, the invading powers bestowed an equal share of political prerogatives on different communities. This triggered a deepening of the divisions between the various groups. Larger communities eventually came to consider it a great opportunity to strengthen their position. While Shias are dominant in Iraq’s current political process, the Pashtun people are a majority in Afghanistan’s government.

The Arab uprisings confirmed the West’s long-standing inclination to favor transition processes that attach high priority to ring-fenced “minority rights.” Western insistence on the rights of the Coptic community in Egypt is a case in point. In Syria, the United States regularly stresses that it wants members of the opposition (especially those forming part of the Syrian National Council) to commit more clearly to protecting the “rights of the minorities.” However, there is some inconsistency: in general, Western countries’ potentially laudable defense of minority rights seems to be less fervent when it comes to defending the rights of Shias. For example, the international community has played deaf to demands for change from Shia communities in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. In particular, violent clashes between the Bahraini/Saudi armies and Shia demonstrators in 2011 and 2012 have not led to international condemnations anywhere near as severe and determined as in the Syrian case.

In Libya, division between groups has been implicitly encouraged rather than avoided. Following Mu‘ammar Gadhafi’s fall, divisions have widened between the members of the Transitional National Council (TNC). Given that the country is comparatively homogeneous in confessional terms (Sunni), tribal, regional, and ideological divisions play a greater role. Since the beginnings of the anti-Gadhafi protests, Benghazi became a focal point for protests, somewhat to the detriment of regional priorities. Regional, ideological, and tribal rivalries have grown progressively since. Due to Libya’s decentralized history and societal structures, national cohesion has been more problematic here than anywhere else in the region. Moreover, no concrete steps for the organization of a post-Gadhafi transition had been defined before the fall of the Libyan leader. The result was further division among large parts of the population along ideological (Islamists versus secularists) or ethnic affiliations (Arabs versus Berbers as well as tribal rivalries).

Even though state protection of minority rights is important, foreign governments should stress the consolidation of the rule of law, citizenship, and human rights as a whole without a specific emphasis on any community or minority. By abstaining from distinguishing between one community and the other, the EU and the United States would gain credibility and trust in the region. While Russia and China may not be willing or able to give lessons in respect for minority rights, these two countries benefit from the perception (whether justified or not) that they are more reluctant to pick winners and play communities against each other. Western countries do not do themselves a favor when their actions arouse suspicions of divide and rule.

Conclusion

Genuine concerns over the dangers of sectarian conflict become confused with geostrategic considerations, often to the detriment of regional security. Some Arab leaders’ fears of being swept away by continuing uprisings lead them to instrumentalize sectarianism as a form of life insurance. The frequent reference to the Sunni-Shia rift presumably promoted by Iran is the most obvious example. Western actors need to move their sectarian-based reading of some events in the region towards broader interpretations. Both Western and local actors must stop viewing the MENA region through a sectarian prism and instead aim to strengthen the internal cohesion of nation-states.

Libya offers a concrete opportunity to do so. The TNC’s internal contradictions, combined with a rise in tribal and local tensions, provide room for the West to attach conditions to its support of the country’s reconstruction. Meanwhile, in Syria, the international community would be wise to broaden its sectarian interpretation of facts, according to which Alawites dominate and exclude all the other communities. It should move towards a more pragmatic, transconfessional narrative that calls on all Syrians, without reference to any community in particular, to define together a shared vision for Syria’s future.

*The author is a senior researcher at the Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y El Dialogo Exterior (FRIDE), a Madrid-based think tank for global action that analyzes key debates in international relations. A specialist in geopolitical issues regarding water, he is part of a project dedicated to the study of politics and religion and their interactions in contemporary conflicts. Prior to joining FRIDE, he was a senior researcher on the Middle East and North Africa and on water issues at the Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques (IRIS) in Paris (2002–10), where he directed the master’s degree program in international relations and all seminars on the Middle East, North Africa, and geopolitical issues concerning water. He worked at the Secrétariat Général pour l’Administration (French Ministry of Defence), supervising the Paris-based Collège Interarmées de Défense’s training program on water issues (2005–7). Dr. Mikaïl is also a lecturer at the Institute for European Studies of the Université Paris 8 Saint-Denis. He is a member of the editorial boards of the French academic journals Revue internationale et stratégique and Confluences Méditerranée. He holds a PhD in political science from the Université Paris 8 Saint-Denis, an MA in political science from the Université Paris Dauphine, and an MA in international relations and an MA in Arab and Islamic civilizations from the Université Marc Bloch.

This article first appeared as Barah Mikaïl, “Sectarianism after the Arab Spring: An Exaggerated Spectre,” Policy Brief no. 131 (Madrid: FRIDE, June 2012). Reprinted with permission from FRIDE. This article was published in the 1st quarter 2014 edition of Air & Space Power Journal–Africa & Francophonie.

America’s Strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean

R. Evan Ellis, PhD*

The bitter 2016 US presidential race is now past. As the incoming administration of President Donald J. Trump assumed office in January, it became important that Latin America and the Caribbean be high on the agenda. There is currently no state or terrorist group in the region posing a significant, immediate, credible threat against the United States. Yet the absence of such a threat is not a sufficient reason for relegating it to the bottom of the new administration’s long list of national security priorities.

No other region of the world trades more with, or has more investments from the United States, than Latin America and the Caribbean; by implication, there is no region which more directly affects continuing US economic security and prosperity.1 In addition, the physical connectedness of the region to the United States, including the land border with Mexico, as well as maritime approaches through both the Pacific and the Caribbean, link the conditions of the region to the physical security of the nation in ways that are not the case for other parts of the world. When tens of thousands of child migrants from Central America arrived at the US border in the summer of 2014, for example, the United States was forced to spend more than $3.7 billion to manage the crisis.2 When the Zika virus began spreading throughout the region, it quickly reached Miami.3 When the US expulsion of Central American immigrants sowed the seeds of the violent street gangs Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, the same gangs quickly began to appear among Central American immigrant communities in major American cities as well.4

In 2016, then-US presidential candidate Trump’s promise to construct a wall on the border with Mexico became a controversy of international proportion, yet the resonance of the theme of the “wall” with an important portion of the American electorate is itself a recognition of how the security and prosperity of the United States is affected by the region to which we are geographically and economically connected.

The Strategic Environment of Latin America

The strategic environment of Latin America and the Caribbean is commonly misunderstood. Although the region is not plagued by interstate wars, it is by no means a region at peace. Forty-three of the fifty cities with the world’s highest homicide rates are found in Latin America.5 While most in the United States think of the character of Latin America’s problems as different from those in other parts of the world like the Middle East, it is useful to recall that the conditions that catapulted the Middle East into chaos following the Arab Spring were not conflicts between states, but rather, like those in Latin America, socioeconomic tensions fed by the dynamics of globalization in the context of weak and unresponsive state institutions for addressing them.

The challenges of Latin America may differ in degree and details from those in other parts of the world, but do not differ in their ability to explode in a way that harms the US national security.

The strategic environment of Latin America and the Caribbean is defined by a complex interplay between global and internal dynamics, including the actions of the United States and multiple extra-hemispheric actors. The factors which most threaten the stability of that environment fall into two groups: (1) the challenges to public order and institutions from transnational organized crime, and (2) the imperatives of global interdependence.

Transnational Organized Crime

Although Latin America and the Caribbean have numerous problems of underdevelopment, inequality, and injustice, it is transnational organized crime that most actively drives the region in a negative direction. The activities of criminal groups in pursuit of financial gain, including bribery and intimidation, corrupts both public institutions and civic society. At the same time, it undermines public order through spawning illicit activity and violence.

Such effects are generated by different kinds of criminal groups in different ways, including large cartels, smaller groups which smuggle narcotics, money, people, and contraband goods through the national territory, transnational gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 which extort people and businesses, sell drugs and commit petty crimes in the spaces they dominate, and even groups who commit their crimes in the name of political objectives, including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (also known as FARC) and National Liberation Army (also known as the ELN) in Colombia, or Sendero Luminoso in Peru.

Global Interdependence

Although global interdependence can produce economic and social gains, it also has destabilizing side effects. The region’s increasing economic connectedness to the rest of the world, with respect to trade, investment, and finance, has also enabled the globalization of organized crime and money laundering. It has made the region more vulnerable to external shocks, such as the negative impact of the fall in prices for its commodity exports.

In the sphere of information, the transmission of data through the Internet, social media, and even telephones contribute to the contagion of ideas. This includes, not only innovations that advance the human condition, but also the ideas that subvert it, from bomb-making techniques to the global recruitment of “lone wolf” terrorists.

The global movement of people includes unregistered cross-border migration and human trafficking activities such as forced prostitution. The movement of people also is an enabler of the transmission of diseases and the spreading of organized crime groups to foreign cities, including the establishment of Mara Salvatrucha in Washington DC, or the spread of Brazil’s First Capital Command to Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay.

Finally, global interdependence facilitates interactions with the region by extra-hemispheric actors. This includes Chinese pursuit of markets, commodities, agricultural goods and technology in the region, in ways that have undermined established institutions such as the Interamerican Development Bank, as well as the US pursuit of its policy objectives in the region. The expanded connection of Latin America with the rest of the world also includes Russian and Iranian interactions with the region, from mining and petroleum sector investments to construction, arms sales, and activities in the political and security sphere.

While transnational organized crime and the activities of extra-hemispheric actors in the region may impact US national security, the region can no longer be defined in terms of a Cold War-style struggle between competing power blocs or ideologies. Rather, the key battle of ideas, which shapes the region today, is one that comes from both the global environment and the region itself: what is the best way to achieve economic advance in a framework of relative social justice? The evolving mixture of neoclassical, statist, and populist policies adopted by alternating governments in the region are attempts to address this question, which correspond to the fundamental hopes and well-being of the region’s population.

Toward a US Strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean

Although the United States interacts continually with Latin America and the Caribbean and actively promotes a policy agenda there featuring democracy, human rights, free trade and strong institutions, 6 it arguably lacks a coherent strategy that guides how it conducts that engagement, and how it prioritizes its interactions. The focus of this paper is to advance such a framework.

The US strategy toward Latin America and the Caribbean must be guided by a compelling concept regarding how to leverage its strengths and pursue its goals in the context of limited resources and the numerous options the region has for engagement in the contemporary interdependent world.

The US engagement with the region should focus on the importance of partnerships with the countries of the region, based on mutual respect. Moreover, the United States should evaluate the dynamics of Latin America and the Caribbean and its own actions in the region, in the context of the greater set of global relationships and conditions in which the region is situated.

This paper argues that US engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean should be guided by seven pillars:

1. Focus on building strong institutions and the rule of law

2. Help ensure the success of friends adopting a path consistent with US values

3. Contain soft challengers to the United States

4. Prepare for critical events that may occur

5. Shape the rules of the game

6. Be mindful of connections between the region and other parts of the world

7. Be attentive to perceptions of US power and moral authority globally

Focus on Building Strong Institutions and the Rule of Law

Virtually all the US objectives in the region, from promoting democracy and human rights to advancing development and social justice to combatting the more malevolent influences of some foreign actors, is facilitated by strong institutions in the region and the rule of law. Weak institutions are more vulnerable to exploitation by foreign companies and domestic elites, as well as distortion by populist leaders who leverage the support of followers which they have mobilized (particularly when the population tolerates elevating achievement of the initiatives of popular leader above the checks and balances of the country’s political system).

Where there is a lack of transparency and respect for the rules in a country, corruption flourishes, reinforcing inequality between those who have access to economic and political power and those who do not, and in the process, undermining the faith of the people in democracy and free markets. In the end, the casualty is the opinion of the population in the viability of Western concepts of democracy and free markets for building a prosperous and just society. In addition, where institutions and the rule of law are weak, foreign actors (including but not limited to the People’s Republic of China [PRC]) can more easily secure commercial position and political leverage in the country by courting its elites, rather than competing in fair and transparent public processes.

Help Ensure the Success of Friends Adopting a Path Consistent with US Values

In several Latin American countries, frustrations with the policies of socialist or populist presidents has brought to power new heads of state more favorably oriented toward the United States and traditional Western concepts for managing the economy and public institutions. Following the American victory in the Cold War, the seemingly demonstrated wisdom of the US economic model versus that of the Soviet Union arguably led the many in Latin America to elect pro-US, market-oriented leaders. The neoliberal economic policies that these leaders followed was termed “Washington Consensus.” Some, such as historian Francis Fukuyama, saw the new consensus as enduring, terming it “the end of history.”7

Yet because those policies did not resolve Latin America’s fundamental problems of underdevelopment and social inequality, with time populations lost faith in those policies, and the leaders espousing them were displaced by others pursuing new approaches, including in some cases, a mixture of free market and socialist policies, and in others, populist socialism.

As during that lost moment of opportunity at the end of the Cold War, today the United States has a vested interest in ensuring that the new generation of Latin American leaders following neoliberal, free trade policies, succeed in that endeavor, and that their initiatives produce positive results, so that they (or leaders following similar policies elsewhere in the region), will prosper politically in their own country, and in other countries in the region inspired by their example.

The US strategic imperative for the United States to ensure the success of those following policies consistent with its economic and political philosophies may be divided into two categories: (1) supporting the success of “newfound friends,” and (2) standing by “embattled” ones. With respect to the first category, in 2016, the United States has been given a new chance with respect to relatively promarket, pro-US governments in Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Guyana. It is important in each case to help them succeed.

Argentina

Mauricio Macri won the presidency in November 2015, putting an end to 12 years of socialist rule by Nestor Kirchner and his wife Cristina Fernandez. The president came into office signaling his interest in resolving legal battles over Argentina’s defaulted debt, pursuing a more market-oriented economic policy to restore Argentina’s financial health, and improving Argentina’s relationship with the United States and other developed nations from which it had isolated itself during the Kirchner period.8

President Macri’s success in pursuing this new course is important for the United States and the region for multiple reasons. Argentina is a key actor in regional multilateral forums; its constructive participation in the Organization of American States (OAS), and its potentially renewed preference for using the OAS rather than the Union of South American Nations or the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States to address regional disputes, could help to restore the primacy of the OAS-led Interamerican system, in which the United States has a seat at the table. In this course, the Macri government confronts many obstacles. Internally, it is challenged to paralyze the administration’s efforts.9

The nation is also besieged by drug flows, particularly in the north moving from countries such as Peru and Bolivia, toward Brazil, to Europe, with a 700 percent increase in drug seizures during the first year of the Macri administration.10 The Macri government, which estimates that some 70 tons of cocaine pass through Argentina each year, declared an emergency and authorized the use of military aircraft to force down suspected drug flights.11

Argentina also continues to be tempted by its economic relationship with the PRC, which is a key purchaser of Argentine soybeans, and whose companies are performing multiple major infrastructure projects in the country with financing by Chinese banks. These projects include two major hydroelectric facilities, nuclear reactors, and renovation of the Belgrano-Cargas railroad system.12 In short, as important as it is strategically for the United States that the Macri government succeed, there is a risk that it could be tempted down a less desirable path.

Brazil

In Brazil, like Argentina, the promarket, pro-US government of Michel Temer has replaced the more left-leaning one of Dilma Rousseff, in the process altering a Brazilian foreign policy which subtly and sometimes not so subtly worked against American strategic interests in the region, seeking to replace the OAS with the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and fostering an informal alliance with Russia and China through Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) group.13 Temer’s position, having arrived in power as vice president following the polemical process of Dilma’s impeachment, has overcome most of the internal challenges from those on the left who cast the impeachment process as a de facto coup. Yet, Temer is struggling to establish legitimacy and governability as key allies and members of his government, and perhaps Temer himself, face criminal charges from the “Car Wash” bribery scandal.14 He also faces the challenge of turning around an economy that is expected to continue to contract at a 3.4 percent rate this year,15 before facing new elections in 2018. In this context, Temer will face the ever-present temptation of the PRC, as a major purchaser of Brazilian soybeans, iron, and petroleum, and a supplier of credit to Brazilian institutions.

Peru

In Peru, the pro-US neoliberal economist Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has replaced Ollanta Humala in the presidency. Humala’s administration was politically moderate, yet plagued by scandals.16 Peru’s strategic position on the Pacific Ocean makes it one of Latin America’s key players in the region’s relationship with Asia, including the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, which it hosted in November 2016. Peru will play an important role in shaping a range of regional institutions, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Pacific Alliance, as well as inter-American institutions such as the OAS, UNASUR and CELAC. The nation is also one of the most important commercial and military partners for China^17 and Russia^18 in the region.

Although Peru’s economy is anticipated to grow at an average rate of 4.2 percent through 2021,19 its mining and petroleum sectors continue to suffer from depressed global prices for those commodities. Peru also continues to face governance challenges in its remote mountain and jungle regions stemming from conflicts between mining and petroleum companies, and the local communities impacted by their activities.

Peru also faces growing challenges as a source country for cocaine and illegal mining products exported to Europe, the United States and Asia.20 Coca cultivation in Peru is expanding in the northern jungle region south of the Putumayo River (partly due to the cessation of aerial spraying against coca plants by its neighbor to the north, Colombia). It is similarly growing along the length of the eastern side of its portion of the Andes Mountains. Meanwhile, illegal mining activities in Peru are also growing, spreading from the Madre de Dios Region to neighboring departments such as Puno and Cusco. Cocaine and intermediate coca products, as well as metals and minerals from the informal mining sector are being increasingly exported from neighboring Bolivia, adding to organized crime and associated social challenges in the country.21

Guyana

In Guyana, the May 2015 election of the Afro-Guyanese government of Brig Gen and former US professor Dr. David Granger, put an end to 23 years of Indo-Guyanese rule, reflecting and casting further light on tremendous public corruption of the previous government.22 The English-speaking nation’s geographic position to the east of Venezuela, on the southern rim of the Caribbean Basin, positions it as a significant contributor to Caribbean security, while the discovery of oil offshore will potentially bring significant new resources to the impoverished country.23

On the other hand, however, the nation has been militarily threatened by Venezuela, which reasserted a historic claim to Guyana’s Essequibo region coinciding with the discovery of oil in fields whose ownership would be impacted by that claim. At the same time, the political position of the Afro-Guyanese coalition that propelled Granger to power is fragile, since the Afro-Guyanese are a slim minority, and their ascension to power was based, in part, on a new centrist political movement, the Alliance for Change that was substantially drawn from the Indo-Guyanese voting bloc.

In addition to the imperatives for the United States to ensure the success of the governments mentioned in the previous paragraph, turning to policies more aligned with the United States, there are also five regimes which are longstanding friends, whose strategic position makes it important to help them overcome the significant challenges they are currently facing: Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Paraguay.

Mexico

Contrary to widespread perceptions in the United States, Mexico is a relatively modern, economically diverse middle-income country with public institutions that function adequately outside of matters dealing with organized crime. Mexico is arguably the most important strategic partner of the United States, with the economic prosperity of both closely linked through the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mexico’s close economic relationship with the United States has also made it a bulwark against the advances of extra-hemispheric actors such as China, Russia and Iran. A Mexico which were to be engaged in significant, warm economic and political relationships with these extra-hemispheric actors would force the United States to fundamentally re-evaluate its security position in the hemisphere. The anti-Mexico rhetoric of the 2016 presidential election has provoked many in Mexico to re-evaluate their historically troubled relationship with the United States, yet has not yet provoked the country to move decisively to change its posture vis-à-vis these extra-hemispheric actors.

Mexico is also a key partner of the United States in managing flows of drugs, migrants, and weapons, as well as other security issues on its shared border. Mexico further shares the Caribbean basin with the United States, including not only its oil, but also giving Mexico, as well as the United States, a strong interest in the future of Cuba, whose western coast is almost as close to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula as Cuba’s north coast is to Miami.

In addition, Mexico is an important economic and political actor in the Pacific, and its leadership will be important to the future of structures that define the trade and political regime that prevail in the Pacific, including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Pacific Alliance, in which Mexico is a founding member. Although the Mexican government has struggled admirably against the transnational criminal cartels which have produced more than 80,000 deaths in the country during the past two presidential administrations,24 as with the US campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the threat continues to evolve, even as Mexico continues to win the battles.

As the regime of President Enrique Peña Nieto nears its end, the organized crime challenge in Mexico appears to be moving toward a new phase of crisis.25 The struggle of the past decade has splintered the major criminal organizations that once dominated the country into more than 60 violent gangs and factions, whose less experienced leaderships and infighting has expanded violence in states such as Guerrero, Michoacán, and the state of Mexico, bordering the capital. As the richest and most internationally connected criminal federation—Sinaloa—weakens, the more aggressive, similarly internationally connected cartel Jalisco New Generation is both growing in power and building alliances with the remnants of other groups such as the Tijuana and Juarez cartels and the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel organization to take on Sinaloa, in what could unleash a new major wave of violence in the country.

Colombia

The 2 October rejection by Colombian voters of the peace accords negotiated between their government and the FARC has arguably left the country in a difficult position. Despite government efforts to renegotiate an agreement with the FARC and initiate peace negotiations with the ELN, the impasse puts Colombia in a dangerous situation with respect to both the dynamics of organized crime and the national budget.

On one hand, Colombia’s suspension of spraying coca crops with the controversial herbicide glyphosate, in combination with a reluctance to attack FARC encampments while the government works on a new peace accord, create incentives for the expansion of narco-trafficking in the country. In anticipation of “peace,” Colombia’s budget, already hampered by lost oil export revenues due to low petroleum prices, contemplates significant cuts in military spending. Colombia’s security forces find themselves without peace, without the accompanying funds from the United States and Europe to implement new programs associated with “peace,” even while facing significant continuing criminal violence.

At the same time, Colombia also faces a significant threat from the unfolding political and economic collapse of, and possible civil war in, neighboring Venezuela which could significantly expand the growing number of Venezuelan refugees in the east of Colombia, already a key operating area for both guerilla organizations such as the FARC and ELN, and criminal bands such as the “Gulf Clan.”

Honduras

The geographic position of Honduras has made it a natural transit country for narcotics flowing from source zone countries, such as Colombia, toward the United States and Canada, fueling both corruption that has challenged the coherence of its institutions and gang violence that has made the country one of the most violent in the hemisphere. The government of Juan Orlando Hernandez has made significant progress against narco-trafficking organizations such as the Cachiros and Valle Valles, as well as against gang violence in major urban areas such as Tegucigalpa-Comayagüela and San Pedro Sula. That progress against gangs and narco-traffickers reflects support from the United States, as well as cooperation between Honduras with its neighbors including joint security activities such as the Maya-Chorti task force with Guatemala, Lenca-Sumpul with El Salvador, and Morazán-Sandino with Nicaragua.

Honduras’ success also includes innovative new structures such as the inter-agency organization for combatting organized crime FUSINA, as well as the creation of a special new police capability within the armed forces, the Military Police of Public Order (PMOP). Yet FUSINA has now entered its second generation of leadership, and the Mexican cartels are currently building new relationships with the remnants of smuggling organizations, with the rise of new incipient organizations such as the “Cartel of the Pacific.”

At the same time, US reluctance to support police structures in the military such as the PMOP, the country’s desire to interdict narco-flights, and criticisms of corruption within the Honduran government, have introduced tension into the relationship. It is important that the United States continue to work with Honduras to ensure that it succeeds as both a bulwark against criminal flows through the region, and as a friend of the United States.

Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic has long been a key US economic and political partner in the Caribbean, with significant diasporas in New York and Miami, and a trade relationship strengthened by the country’s participation in the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). The Dominican Republic currently enjoys one of the strongest economies in the region, and one of its most popular presidents, Danilo Medina Sanchez, was just re-elected to a second term in May 2016. The country’s sharing of the island of Hispanola with Haiti has historically made it a key part of the international response to ongoing humanitarian crises in the latter, obliging the Dominican Republic to shoulder a disproportionate portion of the spillover effects, including support for Haitian refugees.

Beyond Haiti, as the largest Spanish speaking country in the Caribbean and being physically proximate to Cuba, the Dominican Republic will be one of the actors most affected by the political and economic reintegration of Cuba into the region, and one of the partners best suited to help the United States understand and manage the consequences of that reintegration, particularly in the Caribbean.

The Dominican Republic is also a key node in the movement of drugs and other illicit goods from the north coast of South America toward both the United States and Europe. Across the Caribbean, to the south of the country, the continuing erosion of governance in Venezuela, and the expanding production of cocaine in Colombia (owing to the previously mention suspension of actions against the FARC and glyphosate spraying of coca plants) will continue to expand the quantity of cocaine traveling from the Caribbean coast of those two countries to the Dominican Republic, and from there, toward the United States and Europe. The resources of narco-trafficking organizations passing through the Dominican Republic, and the associated activities of criminal groups there, have had an overwhelming, highly corrupting impact on government institutions.

The United States must redouble its work with the Medina government to fight that narco-trafficking and its corrupting effects, while maintaining and leveraging the role of the Dominican Republic as a key partner in the Caribbean.

Paraguay

Similar to Honduras in Central America, Paraguay is prejudiced by the strategically important location that it occupies along the increasingly important drug routes between South American source zone countries Peru and Bolivia, and growing narcotics markets in southeastern Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Europe. Paraguay is already the source of more than half of the marijuana consumed in South America, with its northeastern departments bordering Brazil such as Concepcion and Amambay supporting a worrisome concentration of activity by narco-traffickers, including powerful Brazilian gangs such as the Primer Capital Command, as well as the incipient guerilla organization the Paraguayan People’s Army. In addition, to the south of these drug transit areas, the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este, where the country shares a border with both Brazil and Argentina, has historically been an important node of illicit commerce in the region, including a concentration of Lebanese traders who have been linked to Islamic terrorist groups such as Hezbollah.26

Contain soft challengers to the US

Several regimes in the region should be recognized as “soft challengers” to the United States in that they are not overtly working against US security interests, but are pursuing a policy agenda and extra-regional relationships which undermine the US strategic position and its policy objectives in the region. While the United States should not seek to violate the sovereignty of these countries by attempting to change these regimes outside of their constitutions and democratic processes, the United States should nonetheless avoid providing or promising them benefits in the hope of modifying their behavior. Instead, the nation should recognize the intractability of the position of their leaders and should work with other states in the region to contain their influence.

Ecuador

Among the countries of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of the Americas (ALBA), Ecuador has arguably made the best use of the revenues accruing to it from oil exports and loans from the PRC to build infrastructure such as hydroelectric facilities and roads that contribute to the development of the country. Despite being surrounded by the region’s two principal sources of cocaine, Colombia and Peru, Ecuador is relatively free of crime and narco-trafficking and has a healthy political culture. Regrettably, despite such positive attributes, Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, harbors deep personally-rooted resentment toward the United States, based in part on the imprisonment of his father there and subsequent death.27

Correa’s regime, along with Venezuela, is one of the founding members of the anti-US ALBA alliance, and has consistently worked against US interests in the region through ALBA, CELAC, and other forums. Ecuador, under Correa, has been one of the key regimes bringing the Chinese military equipment and commercial companies into the region. Although Ecuador’s purchase of military radars from the Chinese ended negatively with the termination of the contract in May 2012^28 in September 2016, the government indicated that its military relationship with the PRC was again proceeding forward, taking delivery on 10,000 AK-47 rifles and 3 patrol boats, the fruits of a previously signed multiyear defense cooperation agreement.29 While the United States should be very cautious regarding interactions with the Correa government, it should avoid excessively polarizing the relationship, in the hope that the country’s 2017 presidential elections will bring to power a leader more favorably disposed to working with the United States.

Bolivia

The Bolivian regime of Evo Morales, like the Correa regime in Ecuador, is working actively against US interests in the region, including the pursuit of military relationships with both China and Russia. In July 2017, Bolivia took delivery on the first 27 of 31 Chinese armored vehicles, the latest of military acquisitions from the PRC that occur on an almost annual basis.30 Bolivia has also signed a defense agreement with Russia,31 as well as commercial agreements of concern such as the construction of an experimental nuclear reactor near El Alto. Thanks, in part to its legalization of coca growing for traditional uses, in combination with its noncooperation with the United States and international authorities in narco-trafficking, Bolivia has become a major producer and transit zone for drugs in the region, as well as an important location of illegal mining activities, and the laundering of metals and minerals mined elsewhere. Nonetheless, beyond narco-trafficking and ties with extra-hemispheric actors, the influence of Bolivia on the region is limited by its relative isolation in regional politics.

Despite his anti-US posture, President Morales has brought a decade of stability to a country whose complex social and ethnic dynamics previously led to political change on an average of every two years. In December 2015, he lost a referendum seeking to modify the constitution allowing him to run for reelection when his term expires in 2019. It is not clear whether another leader will emerge after Morales with the stature and charisma to avoid Bolivia’s return to the political instability that characterized it prior to Morales’ presidency.

Nicaragua

The Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega has historically sought to reap the benefits of engagement with the United States, while simultaneously working against it in the region as a member of ALBA, and the principal hub for Russia’s reconstruction of a military presence in the region. As a member of CAFTA-DR, Nicaragua enjoys tariff-free access to US markets, yet has also served as Russia’s principal partner in the region, including purchasing Russian T-72 tanks and other arms, hosting a regional Russian counternarcotics training center, and giving Russian forces access to Nicaraguan waters and naval bases.32 Nicaragua has also shown disdain for its relationship with the United States by expelling US government personnel in the country openly on official business.33

Although its pursuit of a transoceanic canal in conjunction with Chinese billionaire Wang Jing is not officially linked with the Chinese government, the project, which has generated expressions of concern, will likely only go forward with Chinese capital and Chinese companies, and if completed, will likely give the PRC a significant source of commercial leverage in the region.34

Suriname

Because of Suriname’s use of Dutch as its official language and its relatively isolated position in the northeast part of South America, the nation is often overlooked. It’s president, Desi Bouterse, has generally aligned himself with the anti-US ALBA block, although avoiding formal membership therein. His poor relationship with the United States is complicated by his implication in the murder of a political opponent, although his regime is arguably even more hostile to the Netherlands, the nation’s former colonial master.

Under Bouterse and his predecessors, the PRC has significantly expanded its commercial presence in Suriname, as well as its work with the Surinamese military.35 The country has also raised concern due to transnational organized crime, including human trafficking, in which its noncooperation with international law enforcement has earned it a designation by the United States State Department of Tier III, the lowest that it gives.36

Prepare for critical events that may occur. While there are always a range of significant potential events that would impact the security environment of Latin America and the Caribbean, there is at least one event which is both sufficiently likely and significantly impactful, that the United States should take particular measures to anticipate—the violent collapse of Venezuela.

Venezuela

The gross economic mismanagement of Venezuela by the “Bolivarian Socialist” government of Nicolás Maduro has effectively destroyed both the ability of the country to produce foodstuffs and other basic goods to fill the needs of its people, and the capacity of its national oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PdVSA) to produce and sell oil to buy those goods from abroad while servicing its accumulated debt.37 The increase in the international oil price in the second half of 2016, combined with PdVSA’s restructuring of a portion of its commercial debt, allowed Venezuela to make it through the end of the calendar year without defaulting and producing a government fiscal crisis,38 but as the country’s foreign currency reserves go to zero, it is doubtful that it will be able to continue to both pay its bills and import sufficient food to feed its people through 2017.

The involvement of the military in the narco-trafficking and other criminal activities rampant in the country arguably make senior military leaders reluctant to move against the Maduro government for its abandonment of the constitutional order, lest a new government come to power willing to prosecute them, or extradite them to the United States for their role in those activities.39

Nonetheless, the actions of Maduro-aligned government organizations in October 2016 to suspend the constitutionally-permitted recall referendum and threaten to jail the leaders of the opposition-led Congress effectively closes one of the few constitutional avenues remaining in the country for removing the Maduro leadership and averting the economic collapse of the country.40

The United States should be prepared for the possibility of the breakdown of order, to include the possible splintering of the armed forces and a complex struggle between armed groups including the “collectivos” (armed local proregime groups), Venezuela’s national guard, and criminal groups, among others. Such a breakdown could lead to a million or more refugees, principally moving west into the plains of Colombia in an area already dominated by rebel groups and criminal bands. Such a collapse would also impact Venezuela’s other neighbors, including the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, separated from Venezuela by only a few miles of water,41 as well as Guyana,42 whose border with Venezuela in the Essequibo region is less connected by roads, but currently disputed by the Venezuelan government.

Shape the Rules of the Game

In a speech before the Organization of American States in November 2013, then-US Secretary of State John Kerry declared, for those who believed that the United States desired to keep extra-hemispheric actors out of the region, that the era of the 1823 “Monroe Doctrine” which embodied such a posture, was officially over.43 Secretary Kerry’s declaration was not so much a policy choice as a recognition that, in the era of increasing global interconnectedness through the flows of goods, money, people, and information, it was neither practical, nor politically feasible to block relationships between states of the Western Hemisphere and others outside the region. In the present “post-Monroe Doctrine” era, it is not enough for US policymakers to simply work to strengthen the friendships, trust and economic relationships with individual countries in the region (vice ties between those countries and extra-hemispheric actors whose pursuits may be less positive for the interests of the region). They also must endeavor to shape the rules of the game, ensure that the competition of commerce and ideas in the region takes place on a level playing field, with a framework in which the United States has a seat at the table, where values that it believes important such as democracy, human rights, free trade and markets, and the rule of law, have the opportunity to prosper.

Three areas that US policymakers should focus on in this regard are: (1) ensuring the viability of subregional organizations generally aligned with the aforementioned principles, such as the Pacific Alliance, (2) working to ensure the health of the inter-American system as the overarching multilateral framework for working together in the Americas, and (3) ensuring strong, rules-based trade regimes linking the Americas to the rest of the world, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the TTIP.

Supporting the Right Subregional Organizations

The Pacific Alliance is arguably at a critical moment, with the stalling of progress on deepening mechanisms of collaboration, as well as the loss of momentum in efforts to expand the organization to include Costa Rica and Panama. Each of its core members are politically distracted by different internal concerns, including continuing cartel violence in Mexico as the Peña Nieto sexenio (term in office) approaches its end, attempts to rescue the peace process with FARC rebels in Colombia, a change of government in Peru, and a second Michelle Bachelet administration in Chile tied to a far more left-of-center political coalition.

On the other hand, ALBA is arguably also at an important moment, with the political and economic implosion of its founding member and key benefactor, Venezuela, some political moderation by Cuba as it seeks to convince the United States to drop sanctions against it, and the uncertain political future of member-states Ecuador and Bolivia when the charismatic leftist leaders of both step down at the end of their terms. While the United States should not oppose ALBA through military force, it should use all indirect political and economic levers at its disposal to contain the advance of the organization.

With respect to the Inter-American system, while there is certainly room for improvement in the functioning of the bureaucracy of the Organization of American States (OAS), it is in the interest of the United States that the OAS, rather than alternatives that exclude the United States such as UNASUR and CELAC, are the multilateral mechanisms of choice for addressing the challenges of the region.

To do so, the United States must fully fund and take a more active role in associated organizations such as the Conference of American Armies, the Inter-American Defense College, the Central American Integration System, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, among others, to ensure that these institutions are relevant to the problems of the region. The United States must also be prepared to become more active in reforming the OAS bureaucracy where necessary, lead by example by submitting to its jurisdiction where appropriate, and use US economic and political weight to overcome deliberate attempts by member states to paralyze the institution. It must also help the organization to make bold, if difficult decisions, consistent with its principles, such as invoking the Inter-American Democratic Charter to exclude Venezuela, if the review of the situation shows that such action is merited. Finally, the United States must work to consummate the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership to ensure that both transatlantic and trans-Pacific trade are conducted in a rules-based free trade environment with transparency, protection for intellectual property, and efficient legal recourse for the resolution of disputes.

Despite the opposition to the TPP while running for the presidency, the Trump administration should recognize the strategic importance of TPP, not just from the perspective of US companies or workers, but also based on the importance of ensuring a framework in which the United States, China, and other states can interact economically on a level playing field, reaping the benefits of their efforts, innovations, and national policies, without the risk of predatory states using their size and ability to coordinate their public and private sector activities, will force agreements unduly favorable to their companies, or oblige their partners to expose intellectual property as a condition for market access.44

Be attentive to connections between theaters

US planners in Latin America and the Caribbean must be attentive to and anticipate how events in other parts of the world may affect their activities in the region, while their US government counterparts focused on other parts of the world should become more attentive to how their own activities and responsibilities may be impacted by events in Latin America and the Caribbean.

As an example, US Northern Command and US Southern Command should be prepared for how a worsening conflict between Russia and the United States and Europe in Syria, the Ukraine or other parts of Russia’s near abroad, may precipitate Russian initiatives in Latin America with willing partners such as Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and possibly with other anti-US regimes such as Bolivia and Ecuador. In a similar fashion, the two commands should be attentive to how Iran’s new resources and boldness in the Middle East, working in Lebanon and Syria with groups such as Hezbollah, could lead to new Iranian initiatives with Hezbollah in Latin America and the Caribbean. Both commands should also be attentive to how growing Russia-Chinese cooperation in other parts of the world such as through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or alignment of policy positions in the Middle East or the South and East China Seas, could spill over into commercial, political, or other forms of cooperation between the PRC and Russia in Latin America and the Caribbean. Reciprocally, US combatant commands outside the Western Hemisphere, such as US Central Command, US Africa Command, or US Pacific Command, should not assume that American deployment to their regions during the preparation for a conflict, or sustainment from the Western Hemisphere during such a conflict, will not be challenged by an adversary with global reach such as the PRC, Russia, or even Iran. US planners in these regions should anticipate that an adversary will attempt to obstruct coalition formation in the weeks or months leading up to such a conflict, as well as interfering (covertly or overtly) with deployment and sustainment, and may even seek to divert US forces away from the primary theater of conflict on which they are focused by attacking the US homeland or other strategic targets from, and in, the Western Hemisphere.45

Be attentive to perceptions of US power and moral authority globally

Finally, US policymakers in the region must consider how perceptions of US domestic politics, including residual effects of the 2016 presidential election, continue to shape the willingness of actors in the region and beyond to work with the United States and may incite others to expand their challenges to US power. Global perceptions arising from the allegations of impropriety surrounding the election arguably has advanced global perceptions that US politics are no less corrupt and chaotic than their own. Such perceptions, and the discourse of the new administration, even when not focused on Latin America, are likely to affect the willingness of elected leaders in the region to support the United States, as well as, whether in the future, candidates or coalitions backing Western-style democracy, free markets and human rights prevail in the region. Such negative perceptions of the United States may also contribute to recruitment of terrorists from within radicalized communities in the region, Islamic or otherwise. In addition, the perception of sustained US weakness, chaos, or distraction from the region may also lead extra-hemispheric actors to test how far they can pursue their own initiatives in the region, and may induce them to act more boldly. Such possible dynamics make imperative immediate and effective strategic communication by the new Trump administration, both to heal the scars left by the electoral campaign, and to reinforce the positive image to the world regarding what the United States stands for.

Conclusion

The absence of an immediate threat to US national security from a peer competitor or other existential threat in Latin America and the Caribbean does not make the region any less important to the United States. The time for the nation to act, shape the strategic environment of the region is now, lessen the likelihood that emergent conditions, or deliberate acts by those opposed to the United States, could give rise to a crisis in the region that draws the nation away from other aspects of its global engagement.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the United States has the important advantage of geographic proximity, as well as relative familiarity with the region’s language and culture that helps it to engage effectively with the region, despite the burden of lingering negative feelings in some parts of the region arising from perceptions regarding how the United States has related to it in the past. In commercial engagement, with the region, the ability of the US government and companies to engage effectively are supported by already substantial trade and investment integration with the region through NAFTA, CAFTA-DR, and other free trade structures, compliments the large US population from the region and cities such as Miami which are practically integrated into the commercial structures of the region itself. In the military realm, there is no other region in the world in which a greater portion of men and women of the US armed forces who have family ties to the region and speak its languages as their native tongue, or that of their parents.

Despite such advantages, it is not sufficient for the United States to address its challenges in the region by merely adding money to regional programs administered by the US Department of State and Department of Defense. The United States must also think strategically regarding the manner in which it can most effectively apply its resources and influence.

This paper does not claim to offer the definitive answer regarding what the elements of that strategy should be. But it does seek to provoke a debate regarding how the United States can most effectively engage with the region. As noted at the outset of this article, no other region of the world more directly affects prosperity and security of the United States. It is time to consider how to engage with Latin America and the Caribbean more effectively, for both the United States, and those partner nations and the family with whom we share the region.

Notes

1. R. Evan Ellis, “The Strategic Importance of the Western Hemisphere—Defining U.S. Interests in the Region,” Testimony to the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, 3 February 2015, http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA07/20150203/102885/HHRG-114-FA07-Wstate-EllisE-2015 0203.pdf.

2. David Rogers, “Obama Asks $3.7B for Child Migrants,” Politico, 8 July 2014, http://www.politico.com /story/2014/07/barack-obama-congress-child-migrants-108657.

3. Deborah Goldschmidt, “Zika Found in Mosquitoes in Miami Beach,” CNN, 1 September 2016, http://edition.cnn .com/2016/09/01/health/florida-zika-mosquitoes/index.html.

4. Geoffrey Ramsey, “Tracking El Salvador’s Mara Salvatrucha in Washington DC,” Insight Crime, 12 October 2012, http://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/tracking-el-salvador-s-mara-salvatrucha-in-was hington-dc.

5. Jose A. Ortega, “Por Tercer año Consecutivo, San Pedro Sula es la Ciudad Más Violenta del Mundo,” Seguridad Justicia y Paz, 15 January 2014, http://www.seguridadjusticiaypaz.org.mx/sala-de-prensa/941-por-tercer-ano-consecutivo -san-pedro-sula-es-la-ciudad-mas-violenta-del-mundo.

6. The US State Department defines its policy objectives in Latin America in terms of four main pillars: (1) promoting social and economic opportunity, (2) clean energy and the mitigated effects of climate change, (3) safety of the hemisphere’s citizens, and (4) strengthening effective institutions of democratic governance. See “Regional Issues,” US Department of State, accessed 1 November 2016, http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rt/index.htm.

7. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).

8. Benedict Mander, “Mauricio Macri Vows to End Argentina’s Isolation,” Financial Times, 28 October 2015, https://www.ft.com/content/c77cae92-7d6b-11e5-98fb-5a6d4728f74e.

9. “La Resistencia a Macri Sigue Cobrando Fuerzas en la Argentina,” Notienred, 21 December 2015, http://www.no tienred.com/politica-macri-fito.html.

10. “Este Año Creció el Decomiso de dDrogas,” La Nacion, 17 October 2016, http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1947746 -este-ano-crecio-el-decomiso-de-drogas.

11. “El Narcotráfico Encuentra Nuevas Rutas de Paso a Través de Argentina,” La Nacion, 7 September 2016, http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1935330-el-narcotrafico-encuentra-nuevas-rutas-de-paso-a-traves-de-argentina.

12. R. Evan Ellis, “China’s Fall 2016 Latin America Charm Offensive,” The Cipher Brief, 19 October 2016, https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/latin-america/chinas-charm-offensive-1090.

13. Roberto Simon, “Brazil’s Foreign Policy Failures,” Foreign Affairs, 5 January 2016, https://www.foreignaffairs.com /articles/brazil/2016-01-05/brazils-foreign-policy-failures.

14. “Lava Jato: Marcelo Odebrecht Delatará a Políticos Corruptos,” Gestion, 25 October 2016, http://gestion.pe /politica/lava-jato-marcelo-odebrecht-delatara-politicos-corruptos-2173209.

15. “Brazil to Remain in Crisis Next Year: Study,” Xinhua, 1 November 2016, http://english.sina.com/news/2016-11 -01/detail-ifxxfuff7525022.shtml.

16. “Cae la Aprobación de Humala por Escándalo de Corrupción de su Esposa,” Infobae, 15 February 2015, http://www.infobae.com/2015/02/15/1626962-cae-la-aprobacion-humala-escandalo-corrup cion-su-esposa/.

17. Ellis, “China’s Fall,” 2016.

18. R. Evan Ellis, “Characteristics and Assessment of Russian Engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean,” Ensayos Militares 2, no. 1, (June 2016), http://www.ceeag.cl/index.php/volumen-22016/, 29–42.

19. “BCP: PBI Crecería a Ritmo Promedio de 4.2% Entre 2017 y 2021,” El Comercio, 24 October 2016, http://elcomercio.pe/economia/negocios/bcp-pbi-creceria-ritmo-promedio-42-entre-2017-y-2021-noticia-1941398.

20. R. Evan Ellis, “New Developments in Organized Crime in Peru,” The Cipher Brief, 20 May 2016, https://www .thecipherbrief.com/column/strategic-view/new-developments-organized-crime-peru-1091.

21. Suzanne Daley, “Peru Scrambles to Drive Out Illegal Gold Mining and Save Precious Land,” New York Times, 26 July 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/world/americas/peru-illegal-gold-mining-latin-america.html.

22. “Corruption under the Jagdeo Administration was partially ethnically motivated—says political activist,” Kaiteur News, 10 April 2016, http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2016/04/10/corruption-under-the-jagdeo-administration -was-partially-ethnically-motivated-says-political-activist/.

23. “Second Well Confirms Guyana’s Massive Oil Reserve,” Kaiteur News, 26 June 26 2016, http://www.kaieteurnew sonline.com/2016/06/26/second-oil-well-confirms-guyanas-massive-oil-reserve/.

24. “Mexico Drug War Fast Facts, CNN, 18 September 2016, http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/02/world/americas /mexico-drug-war-fast-facts/index.html.

25. R. Evan Ellis, “Strategic Insights-Mexico: New Directions, Continuity, and Obstacles in the Fight Against Transnational Organized Crime,” US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 31 March 2016, http://www.academia .edu/23671583/Mexico_New_Directions_Continuity_and_Obstacles_in_the_Fight_Against_Transnational_Organized _Crime.

26. “Cómo Opera la Red Financiera de Hezbollah en América Latina,” InfoBae, 10 July 2014, http://www.infobae .com/2014/07/10/1579730-como-opera-la-red-financiera-hezbollah-america-latina/.

27. Guy Hedgecode, “Rafael Correa: an Ecuadorian Journey,” Open Democracy, 29 April 2009, https://www.opende mocracy.net/article/rafael-correa-an-ecuadorian-journey.

28. “Ecuador Recupera $ 39 Millones que Pagó por los Radares Chinos que Nunca Funcionaron,” El Universo, 21 May 2013, http://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2013/05/21/nota/942886/ecuador-recupera-39-millones-que-pago-radares-chinos-que-nunca.

29. “China Donó a Ecuador 10 Mil Versiones ‘Modernas’ de Fusiles AK47,” El Universo, 16 August 2016, http://www .eluniverso.com/noticias/2016/08/16/nota/5745396/china-dono-ffaa-10-mil-fusiles.

30. Alexis Solaris T, “Bolivia: La Bonanza También Sirvió para Comprar Armas,” Los Tiempos, 19 September 2016, http://www.lostiempos.com/oh/tendencias/20160919/bolivia-bonanza-tambien-sirvio-compr ar-armas.

31. “Russia, Bolivia Sign Agreement on Military Cooperation,” TASS, 6 September 2016, http://tass.com/defense/898143.

32. R. Evan Ellis, “Characteristics and Assessment of Russian Engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean,” Ensayos Militares 2, no. 1 (June 2016), http://www.ceeag.cl/index.php/volumen-22016/, 29–42.

33. Rezaye Alvarez M., “Evan Ellis: ‘Mi Nada Placentera Experiencia con el Gobierno de Nicaragua’,” La Prensa, 27 June 2016, http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2016/06/27/nacionales/2059162-evan-ellis-mi-nada-placentera-experiencia-con-el -gobierno-de-nicaragua.

34. R. Evan Ellis, “The Nicaragua Canal: Commercial and Strategic Interests Disguised as a Megaproject,” Latin Trade Business Intelligence, 3 December 2014, http://latintrade.com/the-nicaragua-canal-comm ercial-and-strategic-interests-disguised-as-a-megaproject/ .

35. R. Evan Ellis, “Suriname and the Chinese: Timber, Migration, and the Less-Told Stories of Globalization,” SAIS Review 32, no. 2 (Summer-Fall 2012), 85–97.

36. US Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2016 (Washington DC, 2016), http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/258876.pdf.

37. R. Evan Ellis, “The Approaching Implosion of Venezuela and Strategic Implications for the United States,” Strategic Studies Institute (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College), 7 July 2015, http://americanuestra.com/%EF%BF%BCthe-approaching-implosion-venezuela-strategic-implications-united-states/.

38. Joe Carroll, “Cash-strapped Venezuela Tries to Leverage its Ownership of Citgo,” Miami Herald, 6 October 2016, http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article106406457.html.

39. “Identifican a Diosdado Cabello Como Jefe del Cartel de los Soles,” El Nuevo Herald, 26 January 2015, http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/venezuela-es/article8206548.html.

40. Andrew Cawthorne, “Venezuela Crisis Enters Dangerous Phase as Maduro Foes Go Militant,” Reuters, 27 October 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-maduro-protests-idUSKCN12R2J8.

41. Ria Taitt, “Bracing for Refugees,” Trinidad Express, 20 May 2016, http://www.trinidadexpress.com/20160520 /news/bracing-for-refugees.

42. Ivis Wonlah, “Guyana Prepares for Venezuelan Refugees, Fears Economic Hardships Could Cause Mass Exodus,” Atlanta Black Star, 21 May 2016, http://atlantablackstar.com/2016/05/21/guyana-prepares-for-venezuelan-refugees -fears-economic-hardships-could-cause-mass-exodus/.

43. Keith Johnson, “Kerry Makes It Official: ‘Era of Monroe Doctrine Is Over,’” Wall Street Journal, 18 November 2013, https://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/11/18/kerry-makes-it-official-era-of-monroe-doctri ne-is-over/.

44. R. Evan Ellis, “International Regime Building: The Trans-Pacific Partnership,” IndraStra, 22 May 2015, http://www.indrastra.com/2015/05/International-Regime-Building-Trans-Pacific-Partnership-by-Dr-R-Evan-Ellis.html.

45. R. Evan Ellis, “China’s Activities in the Americas,” Testimony to the Joint Hearing of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, 10 September 2015, http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA07/20150910/103931/HHRG-114-FA07-Wstate -EllisE-20150910.pdf.

*Dr. R. Evan Ellis is a research professor of Latin American Studies at the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute with a focus on the region’s relationships with China and other non-Western Hemisphere actors. Dr. Ellis has published more than 90 works. Dr. Ellis has presented his work in a broad range of business and government forums in 25 countries. He has given testimony on Chinese activities in Latin America to the US Congress, and has discussed his work regarding China and other external actors in Latin America on a broad range of radio and television programs. He is cited regularly in the print media in both the United States and Latin America for his work in this area. Dr. Ellis holds a doctorate in political science with a specialization in comparative politics. The views expressed in this article are strictly his own. The author thanks his research assistant, Jennifer Ng, for her contributions to this work.

Toward a US Air Force Arctic Strategy

Col John L. Conway III, USAF, Retired*

If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.

—Lawrence P. Berra (1925–2015)

The US Air Force is no newcomer to the Arctic. It has a long history of aerial operations in the “High North” from fighting the “thousand mile war” in the Aleutians during World War II to expanding its Arctic operations throughout the Cold War and beyond.1 Today, it maintains a significant Arctic presence with missions, bases, personnel, and aircraft in Alaska and at Thule Air Base, Greenland, 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It conducts the Arctic Survival School at Eielson AFB, Alaska, has maintained a radar early-warning system in the High North for more than 60 years, and has flying units (active, guard, and reserve) stationed at Eielson and Elmendorf Air Force bases. The Air Force also operates satellites over the top of the world and launches them into polar orbit.

During World War II the Army Air Corps used the experience of seasoned Arctic flyers to establish several air bases in Greenland as way stations for ferry flights to England and to conduct search and rescue (SAR) missions for downed flyers. To thwart the German U-boat menace, it also performed sea surveillance missions in the North Atlantic from these same locations. Seeing the necessity for a permanent base in the High North, Thule Air Base was constructed in the 1950s in near secrecy; an engineering project that rivaled the construction of the Panama Canal in its size and complexity.2

SAC bombers dispersed to remote runways in Greenland during the Cold War, using “floating shelf” ice islands as part of a “live aboard” concept during times of nuclear tension.3 By 1957 the DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line of more than 30 radar stations was manned from Point Barrow, Alaska to the east coast of Greenland to provide early-warning of Russian bomber and missile attacks.4 The Air Force even had a specialized research organization, the Arctic, Desert, and Tropic Information Center (ATDIC) at Maxwell AFB, AL from 1952 well into the 1960s. ATDIC personnel conducted “mukluks-on-the-tundra” Arctic research, contracted numerous Arctic studies, and published their findings in widely-read newsletters, monographs, and survival manuals.5

Despite its long Arctic history and ample time to create one, the Air Force has no formal Arctic strategy. In May 2013, the White House released its rather generic National Strategy for the Arctic, concurrent with publication of the Coast Guard’s Arctic Strategy. The Department of Defense (DOD) published its Arctic Strategy later that year and the second iteration of the Navy’s Arctic Roadmap came out in 2014.6 However, no Air Force Arctic strategy emerged in their wake.

In February 2017, the DOD released a “Report to Congress on Strategy to Protect US National Security Interests in the Arctic Region.”7 Rather than a periodic update of its previous efforts, this document was mandated by an amendment from a senator from Alaska in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act.8 Its 2013 Arctic Strategy lacked a sense of urgency, and this latest iteration is mostly a rehash of the former.9 The DOD viewed its role in the Arctic in 2013 as “support-only:” part of a “whole of government” approach to the region.10 This reflects its general reluctance to engage in near-term Arctic planning, proposing instead “innovative, low cost, small footprint” solutions to its two objectives—“Ensure security, support safety and promote defense cooperation” and “Prepare for a wide range of challenges and contingencies”—and waiting on solutions until “Combatant Commander’s operational requirements” are defined.11 This is not exactly “if we ignore it, it will go away,” but more “we’ll wait until we’re asked.” The 2013 Strategy also observed that future projections of Arctic activity may be inaccurate; cautioned that there may be fiscal constraints to new Arctic support initiatives; and felt that being “too aggressive” in addressing future security risks may create “conditions of mistrust.”12 The 2016 version also is littered with caveats: “Arctic operations are inherently difficult and dangerous;” “DOD has few niche capabilities;” “DOD will reevaluate capabilities . . . as conditions change;” and “Some may require an expeditionary approach.”13

A Sense of Urgency

The cautionary tone in DOD’s 2016 Strategy continues the thought that there is no great urgency to improve its Arctic posture; a position similar to that in its 2013 iteration. However, recent events in the High North, spurred by receding sea ice, portray just the opposite. Last year Russia resubmitted its territorial claims to the United Nations (UN), claiming that the continental shelf along the Russia’s northern border extends all the way to the North Pole, well beyond the 200-mile economic exclusion zone outlined in the Law of the Sea Convention.14 Canada, Norway and Denmark also have seabed claims pending in the UN, increasing the possibility of multiple territorial disputes. What’s at stake? The 2008 US Geologic Survey (USGS) estimate of High North energy resources suggested that 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas lies in the Arctic.15

China has also asserted her rights in the Arctic, although she has no territory there. In March 2010 Rear Adm Yin Zhin was quoted in the New China Daily stating, “China must play an indispensable role in Arctic exploration as we have one-fifth of the world’s population.”16 Perhaps to make her point, China’s first icebreaker (a second is in service, and a third is in construction) transited the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in 2012, and the China Ocean Shipping Group completed its third year of container shipping along the NSR in 2016.17 It is now eyeing the Northwest Passage for future commercial use, sparking renewed debate about whether the Passage is international water or under Canadian sovereignty. Perhaps to emphasize China’s intent to fully participate in Arctic affairs, five Chinese naval vessels passed near the Aleutian Islands in September 2015—a first.18

Russia has aggressively improved its own military infrastructure along the NSR since 2014, when a revised Military Doctrine declared that Russia’s military must protect its national interests in the Arctic.19 A State Department report in September 2016 noted that the Russian Federation’s refurbished Northern Fleet now commands 42 of Russia’s 72 submarines and 38 surface combatants, including its largest aircraft carrier.20 The more troubling issue, from an American Arctic point of view, has been the reopening of several air bases in eastern Siberia opposite Alaska, including the old Soviet bomber base at Mys Shmidta, and an air defense buildup investment (some $4.3 billion by 2020) across the region.21 In all, Moscow has opened 10 Arctic search and rescue stations, 16 deep water ports, 10 new airfields (for a total of 14), and 10 air defense radar stations to protect its interests along the NSR.22 While all of these improvements are touted as self-defense, such a huge increase in military capability to the north cannot be ignored. Given the short distances between some of these air bases and the Alaskan coastline, the warning time for any overflight can be measured in minutes. Thus, changes that were thought to occur in “the mid-term” are here now, but the DOD’s “near term” planning is inadequate to meet them.

A Lack of “Air-mindedness”

The Air Force’s three-plus year silence may be the result of a lack of any service specificity (i.e. air-mindedness) in the DOD’s Strategy that would prompt the USAF to create a “strategy” of its own. Given the tyranny of time and distance in the Arctic, the current lack of air-mindedness is not only wrong, but dangerous: the only way to quickly get to any crisis above the Arctic Circle is by air. The application of airpower to any situation in the High North provides the quickest response, but there appears to be no DOD-led impetus to do so. Case in point: the term “Air Force” is never used in either the 2013 or the 2016 DOD document; the “Air National Guard” mentioned but once.23 Instead, the generic word “air” finds its way into the text many times.

The lack of air-mindedness also is reflected in the supporting Arctic strategies of both the Navy and the Coast Guard, as well as that of the Government Accountability Office (GAO). A June 2015 GAO report observed that “. . . since the Arctic is primarily a maritime domain, the Coast Guard plays a significant role in Arctic Policy implementation and enforcement.”24 The GAO also acknowledges the Navy’s continuing role in support of other federal agencies and international partners, but it fails to identify one for the Air Force or to even mention the Air Force by name. Thus, an area that is impassable for surface vessels at least part of the year does not have an alternate solution when a maritime one is unworkable due to time, ice, distance, or all three.

The Navy’s 2014–2030 Arctic Roadmap is rich with objectives, ideas, and goals for the High North, but they aren’t objectives, ideas, and goals for the air domain. The Navy follows the DOD’s long lead-time strategy, using near-term (present–2020), mid-term (2020–2030), and far-term (beyond 2030) descriptors. It also echoes the DOD’s 2013 assessment that “. . . with the low potential for armed conflict in the region in the foreseeable future, the existing defense infrastructure (e.g. bases, ports, and airfields) is adequate to meet near-to-mid-term US national security needs.”25 Post 2030, the Navy believes it will have the

“. . . necessary training, and personnel” to respond to Arctic contingencies and emergencies.26 After reading the Navy Roadmap, one observer pointed out that even in the out-years, the Navy plans to operate only in open waters and is not planning for any major fleet enhancements (e.g. double hulls, organic ice breakers, major shore infrastructure) based on a perceived lack of any substantive threat.27

Even though aviation and space are mentioned several times in the Navy’s Roadmap, it doesn’t acknowledge the need for Air Force support except for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance interoperability. Interestingly, several references to the Air Force and Air Force-related milestones in the Roadmap’s previous iteration (October 2009) are absent in the new one. Does this mean that they have been satisfied or just ignored? Perhaps the answer lies in a precursor document to the latest Roadmap, the “Fleet Arctic Operations Game, September 13–16, 2011 Game Report.” It refers to Air Force assets at Elmendorf AFB as “sister service Air transport.”28

In its Arctic Strategy, the Coast Guard discusses aviation only in general terms, focusing instead on its maritime needs (read: a glaring lack of icebreakers in sufficient numbers) in the High North. It should be noted that the Coast Guard has taken possession of previously Air Force-owned C-27 aircraft, but it is unclear if any of them will see duty in the Arctic when they enter Coast Guard service later in this decade. Aviation requirements in general—and those in partnership with the Air Force in particular—are missing from the Coast Guard’s Arctic planning just as they are from the Navy’s. Instead, a report prepared for the Coast Guard in 2010 laments the difficulties in basing aircraft in the High North, even in the summer season. It observed that “No suitable facilities currently exist on the North Slope or near the Bering Strait” that are sufficient for extended aircraft servicing and maintenance. Its “force mix evaluation” only includes surface vessels and helicopters. No fixed wing aircraft appear in the accompanying table, but aircraft are mentioned in its “Concluding Remarks” almost as an afterthought.29

The overall effect of this benign neglect en masse reduces Air Force motivation to produce an Arctic strategy because there is no clearly stated need to do so by the national command authority, DOD, or our sister services. There is one other possible reason for the lack of an Air Force Arctic strategy: there is no war in the Arctic. Although the USAF has been at war for the last quarter-century, it hasn’t fired a shot in anger in the High North since World War II. The Air Force’s warfighting focus is elsewhere because, well, there’s no war in the High North.

However, in response to the growing Russian militarization of the Arctic, many observers now maintain that territorial disputes will inevitably spill over into the Arctic and the region will become another arena of conflict.30 For example, to enter or exit the NSR or the Northwest Passage from the Pacific side of the globe requires transit of the Bering Strait; a natural maritime chokepoint dividing US and Russian territory that may be a flash point in the future, they argue.

The most pressing issue, however, is a coordinated response to a human or environmental crisis in the High North, not a clash of arms. Although Royal Dutch Shell has withdrawn its oil exploration plans in the Chukchi Sea, plans for drilling efforts in the region by others continue in hopes of tapping possibly the world’s last large deposits. Fishing, eco-tourism, and commercial tourism (cruise ships) grow each year on both sides of the Northwest Passage, but this human activity does not come without risks to both persons and the environment. The consequences of one bad decision may require immediate response to mitigate loss of life and damage to a delicate ecosystem.

A major cruise ship successfully transited the Northwest Passage without incident in 2016 and more transits are scheduled for this summer.31 While there have been a few other successful passages in this decade, the waterways of the Northwest Passage are less than ice-free, navigational aids are sorely lacking, and nautical charts of the region are highly suspect. Experts point to poor navigational aids as a major contributor to Northwest Passage safety concerns. One report cautions that at its current rate, completely charting Canadian Arctic waters will take three centuries.32

In 1996 eight nations with territory or clearly defined interests in the region—the United States, Canada, Russia, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden—formed the Arctic Council “. . . to provide a means for promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among the Arctic States, with the involvement of the Arctic Indigenous communities and other Arctic inhabitants on common Arctic issues.”33 The Arctic Council is unique in that it only addresses non-security issues faced by the Arctic states and the region’s indigenous peoples. Observers have characterized it as “. . . populated more by scientists and scholars than politicians.”34

The United States is a signatory to the Arctic Council’s “Nuuk Agreement on Search and Rescue,” which requires each party to establish and maintain an “adequate and effective search and rescue capability” within its designated area. Further, the Nuuk Agreement binds member nations to coordinate its SAR efforts with other members in case of a plane crash, cruise ship sinking, oil spill, or other disaster across the High North.35 The United States is responsible for SAR operations in Alaska and the western approaches to the Northwest Passage; the eastern approaches to the NSR paralleling Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula; and the Beaufort, Chukchi, and Arctic Seas extending to the North Pole.

A key point in the Nuuk Agreement is that any party may request the assistance of other party/parties if necessary, ensuring that “assistance be provided to any person in distress.”36 Given the current physical disposition of Canadian SAR forces—some actually closer to the northern coast of South America than to Alert, Nunavut—it is highly likely that the United States will be asked to provide assistance in any emergency. An article highlighting Canadian SAR woes calculates flight time from Winnipeg to Resolute Bay in the heart of the Northwest Passage via a Canadian C-130H at more than five hours; helicopters to the same area from Comox would take more than 11 hours.37 In contrast, US bases in Alaska and Greenland are much closer and would be a logical alternative to help in times of need.

Increasing maritime traffic in the High North has prompted the shrinking of Arctic ice. The Arctic ice shrinking, combined with the unreliability of High North navigation charts, pose near-term naval problems for anyone who transits the region with only a long-term naval solution. Neither the Navy or the Coast Guard has the current capability to quickly reach any environmental disaster or respond to a SAR event above the Arctic Circle and neither will have such assets for the foreseeable future, if (in the Navy’s case) ever.

Current US strategies see the Coast Guard as the logical service for any rescue in the Arctic. Even though it has several Coast Guard facilities in Alaska, all are located below the Arctic Circle. Coast Guard aircraft are based in Kodiak, about 800 miles south of the most northern point in the United States—Point Barrow. Dutch Harbor, the northernmost major deep water port in Alaska, is 400 nautical miles farther south. The Coast Guard has announced that it had no plans to build any additional shoreside infrastructure in the coming decade, so this force structure is essentially static for the next 10 years.38

What hampers the DOD’s Arctic Strategies (and those of the Coast Guard and the Navy) and deters the Air Force is not the lack of manpower, equipment, or facilities, but a lack of imagination and inclusion. DOD strategy resides primarily in the maritime domain: the slowest, the most expensive ($1 billion and 10 years construction time per icebreaker), as well as the least flexible method of response to any High North situation.39 In contrast, the air domain is faster and more agile and primarily, but not exclusively, an Air Force domain. Thus, ignoring the Air Force limits the DOD’s Arctic options to only a single choice. It’s time to supplement Arctic DOD’s proposed “low cost, innovative” programs, with the Air Force’s “virtually no additional cost, already in-place” ones.

There is sufficient force structure, manpower, and more than enough Air Force and civilian facilities (e.g. airfields) throughout the state of Alaska (not to mention Thule AB) to respond to any crisis in the High North: be it SAR, environmental disaster, aggression, or support to our Canadian ally to meet any or all three.40

An Air Force Arctic Strategy—What Should It Contain?

An Air Force Arctic strategy should raise awareness—air mindedness—of the in-place Air Force assets in the Arctic and provide innovative ways to partner them with sister services and other High North nations. It should complement the DOD’s Arctic Strategies, the National Strategy for the Arctic Region, and all presidential directives that set its framework. The overarching goals of an Air Force Arctic strategy should be to highlight USAF Arctic current core competencies, to suggest ways to interface with sister service Strategies and Roadmaps, and to present future needs to US Northern Command, the DOD advocate for the High North.

Its preface should point out that addressing the effects of climate change is a whole-of-government challenge and that the recommendations of the CNA (Center for Naval Analyses) Military Advisory Board’s report, “National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change,” could serve as a benchmark for planning. In particular, its recommendation, “The United States should accelerate and consolidate its efforts to prepare for increased access and military operations in the Arctic,” is a clear call for increased action. Further, CNA advises, “The time to act is now.”41

An Air Force strategy should succinctly comment on emerging events in the region, including climate change, loss of sea ice, increased commerce in the High North, conflicting claims for the Arctic seabed, and the growing militarization of the region by Russia. In doing so, it will convey the message that these important events in the High North will not pause until some future date when sufficient numbers of icebreakers and new deep water ports may be available; they are happening now. The body of an Air Force Arctic strategy should complement and expand the DOD’s Arctic guidance, focusing on its supporting objectives and also should support sister service Arctic Strategies and Roadmaps by finding lanes in these works that align with Air Force capabilities.

The DOD’s first objective, “Promote defense cooperation,” should be embraced by the Air Force by expanding its military-to-military contacts with other High North nations, especially members of the Arctic Council, to create an interchange of tactics, techniques, and procedures to assure safe and effective flight operations. Joint exercises, mil-to-mil exchanges, and a flow of information and ideas would have a synergistic effect for all parties.

The strategy should call for a survey (actually, a resurvey) of possible forward operating bases above the Arctic Circle using previous World War II, Cold War DEW Line locations, and existing commercial airfields as points of reference. For example, Wiley Post/Will Rogers Memorial Airport services Point Barrow, and its asphalt runway is 7,100 x 150 feet. To the west are three more airfields with runways of 5,000 feet or more: the aptly-named Lonely Air Station, a military airfield supporting the Point Lonely Short Range Radar Site with a 5,000 foot gravel runway; a private airfield, Ugnu Kuparuk, with a 6,551-foot asphalt runway; and Deadhorse Airport, with 6,500 feet of asphalt runway.42 To the west on the Chukchi Sea is Ralph Wein Memorial Airport, south of Kotzebue, featuring a 6,300-foot asphalt runway, hangers, and commercial service.43 Additionally, the use of compacted snow and gravel runways—already proven to be viable landing surfaces under the right conditions—could widen the choice of airfields throughout the region.

These—and others in Canada and Greenland—should be considered as contingency airfields for any rescue operation or oil spill event in the Northwest Passage. Projected use would be during the summer season and in the “shoulder” months in late spring and early fall in the Arctic, as these are times when most human activity will occur.44

The Air National Guard already has led the way, partnering its ski-equipped LC-130s of the New York Air National Guard’s 109th Airlift Wing with Canadian Forces in 2015 in the annual exercise Operation Nunalivut.45 Active Air Force units should follow suit by joining with nations of the High North in joint/multilateral exercises. Particular emphasis should be on austere airfield operations, interoperability of airframes and communications, logistics, and SAR techniques.

For their part, the National Guard should add state-to-state partnership programs with these same nations to build on its successful Arctic exercises with Canada with military-to-military ties. It must be mentioned that although it maintains 70 state-to-state partnerships around the world, no National Guard partnerships with High North nations currently exist.

The second DOD objective, “Prepare for a wide range of challenges and contingencies,” can be met with the same military forces and innovative use of facilities outlined above, much in the way defense support to civil authorities opportunities are used to respond to natural disasters. Other Air Force missions that could be expanded to meet this objective include management and oversight of weather forecasting, surveillance platforms, and an upgrade of communications capabilities. In a region with rapidly changing, often unpredictable weather conditions and notoriously uncertain navigational aids, the Air Force should continue to provide a constellation of overhead capabilities through a strong space launch program. It also can enhance weather forecasting capabilities in the region by engaging its WC-130 assets during the non-hurricane season for additional weather research in the Arctic. Other missions that can be accomplished by in-place assets are those that are already daily mission sets: SAR, airspace sovereignty, airlift, and command and control.

The Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command should pursue new initiatives in training and education to further Arctic air-mindedness. It should increase class sizes and through-put at its Arctic Survival School (Detachment 1, 66th Training Squadron) at Eielson AFB, ensuring a cadre of trained and competent Air Force personnel for all Arctic missions. This must include all aircrew members assigned to Arctic bases and all personnel whose duties could place them in cold-weather survival situations. In the long term, it should seek additional funding and instructors from across DOD to transform it into a joint service school.

AETC also should reinstitute the study of the Air Force in the Arctic at its academic roots—Air University (AU). Utilizing the research capabilities of the entire university, it should explore pertinent Arctic issues and offer courses at Air Command and Staff College and Air War College to encourage Air Force thinking concerning strategic and operational issues in the High North. Course development for Arctic-specific issues could reside in a new Arctic Studies Group at AU, similar to those established at the Naval War College and the US Coast Guard Academy.46

Final Thoughts

To operate in the High North without an Air Force Arctic strategy and to remain silent on Arctic issues that are clearly within the Air Force’s purview allows other services to dictate its roles and missions there. Although the DOD, Navy and the Coast Guard have ignored in-place Air Force assets in their High North planning, these capabilities—in air, space, and in cyberspace—are the sine qua non for success. Bidden or unbidden, the point should be made that the Air Force must be a part of the solution. The Air Force must pursue an Arctic strategy of its own and do it sooner rather than later. The result of further inaction (three plus years since the first DOD Arctic Strategy) will be a loss of visibility for the Air Force and a diminished defense capability for this nation in the last frontier on Earth.

Notes

1. For this article, the “High North” is analogous to the “Arctic” and is used alternatively with that term. The “Arctic is most commonly defined by scientists as the region above the Arctic Circle defined by an imaginary line that circles the globe at approximately 66° 34’ North latitude.” See the National Snow and Ice Data Center website, https://nsidc.org /cryosphere/arctic-meteorology/arctic.html. However, Scandinavian expert and Polish author Ryszard M. Czanry observes that High North is solely a Norwegian construct; the English translation of a Norwegian word that became commonly used in the mid-1980s. He believes that the term generally refers to the Europe Arctic; the term “Far North” being used for the US and Canadian regions. See Czanry, The High North: between Geography and Politics (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2015), 7 (footnote 1), 9–10. The US Congress appears to have no quibble with the two terms. See House of Representatives, The United States as an Arctic Nation: Opportunities in the High North: A Hearing before the Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 113th Congress, 2nd sess. See https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwid7oSx3abSAhXCeSYKHeHdDnoQFggmMAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scribd.com%2Fdocument%2F321744184%2FHOUSE-HEARING-113TH-CONGRESS-THE-UNITED-STATES-AS-AN-ARCTIC-NATION-OPPORTUNITIES-IN-THE-HIGH-NORTH&usg=AFQjCNGqNp_YgL-xCFPGfOecp3dfraCfkA. Interestingly, the “Bard of the Yukon,” Canadian-educated (McGill University) poet Robert W. Service, used the term in his collection, “Songs of the High North,” published in 1958. See “Songs of the High North.” Robert W. Service, http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk /songs-of-the-high-north-9780713650822/.

2. Most of this effort was overseen by Col Bernt Balchen, USAF. Already an Arctic and Antarctic flying legend (the first to pilot an aircraft over the South Pole with Adm Richard E. Byrd), this native Norwegian was recruited into the Army Air Corps in 1942 by its chief of staff, Gen Henry “Hap” Arnold. For the rest of his military career, he was the driving force for Arctic operations and research in the Air Force. The leader of a successful five-month effort to rescue a downed B-17 crew in Greenland in 1942, he built wartime air bases in Greenland and during the Cold War oversaw Thule AB’s construction in near secrecy and surveyed sites for the Ballistic Missile Early Warning radar system. See the Arlington National Cemetery website: “Bernt Balchen, Colonel, US Army Air Corps,” http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/bbalchen.htm, and National Museum of the US Air Force: “Saga of B-17 PN9E,” http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/MuseumExhibits/FactSheets/Display/tabid/509/Article/196694/saga-of-b-17-pn9e.aspx. On 23 October 1999 the US House of Representatives (with the Senate concurring) passed a resolution honoring the late retired Colonel Balchen for his extraordinary service to the United States on his 100th birthday.

3. Louis Degoes and James T. Neal, “Selected Military Geology Projects in the Arctic, 1950–1970,” in J.R. Underwood, Jr. and Peter L. Guth, eds., Military Geology in War and Peace (Boulder, CO: Geological Society of North America, 1998), 205, 208–209.

4. Degoes and Neal, “Selected Military Geology Projects,” 205.

5. In the winter of 1953, Artic–Desert–Tropic Information Center (ADTIC) personnel spent 90 days in Greenland leading Project Mint Julip, a study of smooth ice to determine if it were feasible to establish a scientific project on the ice and maintain it solely by air. See “History of the Research Studies Institute, 1 January–30 June 1953. Arctic, Desert, Tropic Information Center (ADTIC),” Maxwell AFB, AL, 14. In 1955, ADTIC specialists investigated possible ice landing strips at proposed Distant Early Warning Line sites. See “History of the Aerospace Studies Institute, Twenty-Fifth (Silver) Anniversary Command Edition, Arctic-Desert-Tropic Information Center,” Air University. Maxwell AFB, 25 January 1971, 6.

6. The White House, “National Strategy for the Arctic Region,” May 2013, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov /sites/default/files/docs/nat_arctic_strategy.pdf.

7. Department of Defense, Report to Congress on Strategy to Protect United States National Security Interests in the Arctic Region, OUSD (Policy), December 2016, http://www.sullivan.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2016_ArcticStrategy-Unclass.pdf.

8. Department of Defense, Report to Congress on Strategy to Protect United States National Security Interests in the Arctic Region, Section 1068 of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, accessed 7 March 2017, https://www.congress.gov /congressional-report/114/house-report/270.

9. Ibid. 11.

10. Department of Defense, Department of Defense Arctic Strategy (Washington, DC: DOD), 2013, https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2013_Arctic_Strategy.pdf. The strategy acknowledges that it is “nested” under a number of documents relating to the Arctic and “complements” DOD’s Strategy for Homeland Defense and Defense Support of Civil Authorities.

11. Ibid. 7, 10.

12. Ibid. 12–13.

13. “Report to Congress,” 11.

14. Andrew E. Kramer, “Russia Presents Revised Claim of Arctic Territory to the United Nations,” The New York Times, 9 February 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/world/europe/russia-to-present-revised-claim-of-arctic -territory-to-the-united-nations.html. For the exact wording of the Law of the Sea art. 56, see http://www.un.org/depts /los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part5.htm.

15. USGS appraisal as quoted in “The Geopolitics of Arctic Natural Resources,” Policy Department, Directorate-General for External Policies, European Parliament, 2010, 4. See also US Geological Survey, “Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal (North of the Arctic Circle) Assessment Units GIS Data,” 2009, https://energy.usgs.gov/RegionalStudies /Arctic.aspx.

16. Joseph Spears, “A Snow Dragon in the Arctic,” 5 March 2010, Asia Times Online, 8 February 2011, http://www .atimes.com/atimes/China/MB08Ad01.html. The admiral contends no state holds sovereignty in the Arctic. It is a res nullius, or no one’s property, in legal terms. Somehow, this contradicts China’s claims in the South China Sea.

17. Atle Staalesen, “COSCO Sends Five Vessels through the Northern Sea Route,” The Independent Barents Observer, 10 October 2016, https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic-industry-and-energy/2016/10/cosco-sends-five-vessels-through-northern-sea-route.

18. Mark Lanteigne, “U.S. Wary of Russia’s Arctic Military Buildup,” Arctic Deeply, 13 February 2017, https://www .newsdeeply.com/arctic/community/2017/02/13/u-s-wary-of-russias-arctic-military-buildup.

19. “A Widening Scope: China and the Northwest Passage,” The Arctic Journal, 22 April 2016, http://arcticjournal .com/opinion/2292/widening-scope.

20. International Security Advisory Board, Report in Arctic Policy, (Washington, DC: US Department of State, 21 September 2016), 8, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjciaC2pbHSAhXk3YMKHfI0AgcQFggdMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.state.gov%2Fdocuments%2Forganization%2F262585.pdf&usg=AFQjCNG24P95MYx3xibcULb7gGb_cZTAEg &bvm=bv.148073327,d.amc.

21. Marc V. Schanz, “Daily Report: Russia Announces Air Defense Buildup in Arctic,” Air Force Magazine, 4 September 2015, http://www.airforcemag.com/DRArchive/Pages/2015/September%202015/September%2004%202015/Russia-Announces-Air-Defense-Buildup-in-Arctic.aspx.

22. Jeremy Bender and Mark Nudelman, “This Map Shows Russia’s Dominant Militarization of the Arctic,” Business Insider, 7 August 2016, http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-russias-militarization-of-arctic-2015-8.

23. “Report to Congress,” December 2016, 13.

24. US Government Accountability Office Report to Congressional Committees, Arctic Planning: DOD Expects to play a Supporting role to Other Federal Agencies and Has Efforts Underway to Address Capability Needs and Update Plans, (Washington, DC, Government Accountability Office, 15 June 2015), GAO-15-566, 10, 15, www.gao.gov/assets/680/670903 .pdf, GAO-15-566.

25. Navy Task Force Climate Change, US Navy Arctic Roadmap 2014–2030, February 2014, 11–12, www.navy.mil /docs/USN_arctic_roadmap.pdf.

26. Navy Arctic Roadmap, 18.

27. Andreas Kuersten, “Assessing the U.S. Navy’s Arctic Roadmap,” Center for International Maritime Security, 21 June 2015, http://cimsec.org/assessing-the-u-s-navys-arctic-roadmap/17117.

28. US Naval War College, “Fleet Arctic Operations Game, September 13–16, 2011 Game Report, 37, https://www .usnwc.edu/getattachment/Research---Gaming/War-Gaming/Documents/Publications/Game-Reports/FAOG_Game -Report_09-2011.pdf.

29. Claudette Roulo, “Coast Guard Commandant ‘Delighted’ to Get AF C-27s,” American Forces Press Service, 10 April 2014, http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/04/10/coast-guard-commandant-delighted-to-get-af-c 27s.html? comp=7000023468292&rank=1.

30. Mark Lanteigne, “U.S. Wary of Russia’s Arctic Military Buildup,” Arctic Deeply, 13 February 2017, https://www .newsdeeply.com/arctic/community/2017/02/13/u-s-wary-of-russias-arctic-military-buildup; “International Security Advisory Board, Report in Arctic Policy, 9–10; and Andrew E. Kramer, “Russia Presents Revised Claim of Arctic Territory to the United Nations,” New York Times, 9 February 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/world/europe/russia-to -present-revised-claim-of-arctic-territory-to-the-united-nations.html.

31. Tim Ellis, “Test of Readiness: Cruise Ship to Transit Northwest Passage Opened by Sea-ice Retreat,” KUAC, TV–9, 23 October 2015, http://fm.kuac.org/post/test-readiness-cruise-ship-transit-northwest-passage-opened-sea-ice -retreat.

32. “U.S. Draws Map of Rich Arctic Floor Ahead of Big Melt,” Wall Street Journal, 31 August 2007, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118848493718613526.html#articleTabs%3Darticle. An article in 2012 points out that only about 10 percent of Canadian Arctic waters are charted “. . . to a modern standard.” See K. Joseph Spears and Michael K. P. Dorey, “Arctic Cruise Ships: The Pressing Need for Search and Rescue,” Canadian Sailings, 17 October 2012, http://www.canadiansailings.ca/?p=4830$print=1.

33. Arctic Council, Declaration on the Establishment of the Arctic Council. Joint Declaration of the Governments of the Arctic Countries on the Establishment of the Arctic Council. 1. (a). Ottawa, Canada. September 19, 1996. https://oaarchive .arctic-council.org/bitstream/handle/11374/85/EDOCS-1752-v2-ACMMCA00_Ottawa_1996_Founding_Declaration .PDF?sequence=5&isAllowed=y.

34. Crocker Snow Jr., “Analysis: The Arctic Council, Lead Sled Dog of the High North,” GlobalPost, 4 October 2012, https://www.pri.org/stories/2012-10-04/analysis-arctic-council-lead-sled-dog-high-north.

35. The Ilulissat Declaration, Arctic Ocean Conference, Ilulissat, Greenland, 27–29 May 2008, 2, http://www.oceanlaw.org/downloads/arctic/Ilulissat_Declaration.pdf, and the Agreement on Cooperation on Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue in the Arctic [Nuuk Agreement], 12 May 2011, preamble and art. 3, par. 3, http://www.ifrc.org/docs /idrl/N813EN.pdf. In drawing the boundaries of those areas, the declaration was careful not to assert that those boundaries won’t be used as precedents for an unresolved boundary dispute, art. 3, par. 2.

36. Arctic Council, ibid. art. 7, pars. 3 (d) and (e). The Nuuk Agreement also details each nation’s “Competent Authority” (Appendix 1), SAR agencies (Appendix 2), and rescue coordination center locations (Appendix 3).

37. “The Arctic Is a Long Way from Canada’s Search and Rescue Techs,” Nunatsiaq Online, 3 November 2010, http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/556011_the_arctic_is_a_long_way_from_canadas_search_and_rescue_techs/. The original article indicated that Trenton, Ontario, was closer to Quito, Ecuador, than to Nuavut, but that distance was calculated via “flat-earth” Mercator maps. Plots using Google Earth extend the distance to a line just below Panama, bisecting Venezuela and through the northern part of Colombia.

38. US Arctic Research Commission, “Papp: Coast Guard Plans No Arctic Shoreside Infrastructure,” Fierce Homeland Security, 23 May 2013, https://www.arctic.gov/arctic_update/2013/2013may23.html.

39. Ronald O’Rourke, Coast Guard Polar Icebreaker Modernization: Background and Issues for Congress, Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report for Congress RL 34391 (Washington, DC: CRS, 24 July 2013), Summary, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL34391.pdf.

40. Two Air Force bases sit well above 60 degrees, well-positioned for launch and recovery of any SAR effort: Eielson AFB, Alaska at 64°39’56” N and Thule Air Base, Greenland (with its 10,000-foot runway), 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle at 74°31’52” N. South of Eielson is Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) with another 10,000-foot runway as well as the 11th Rescue Coordination Center. At the outer edge of the Aleutian Island chain sits Eareckson Air Force Station (formerly Shemya AFB), a contractor-maintained alternate/emergency landing field/refueling location and the site of an Air Force Cobra Dane radar installation. Eareckson’s 10,000-foot runway and several hangars constitute a far-western basing resource for any SAR operation. The number and variety of Air Force aircraft available at Eielson and JBER would greatly expand SAR response options. Eielson is home to the 354th Fighter Wing (F-16s) and the Alaska Air National Guard’s 168th Air Refueling Wing. JBER hosts the Air National Guard’s 176th Wing (C-17s and C-130s as well as HC-130 and HH-60G SAR aircraft). It also hosts the Air Force’s 3rd Wing, with C-17s, C-12s, the E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft, fighters, and two air and space operations centers.

41. Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) Military Advisory Board, CNA Analysis and Solutions, “National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change,” (Alexandria, VA: CNA Corporation), 5, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwitws-lt7HSAhVIbiYKHYjTAJ4QFggdMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cna.org%2Fcna_files%2Fpdf%2 FMAB_5-8-14.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHlXdzSJIPnVbEIzaZL5I5cUd7KLQ&bvm=bv.148073327,d.eWE.

42. Last year, C-17s delivered elements of an Army stryker brigade combat team to Deadhorse as part of Operation Arctic Pegasus.

43. All airfield descriptions noted above can be found at https://www.airnav.com. Last November, C-17s delivered elements of an Army Stryker brigade combat team to Deadhorse as part of Operation Arctic Pegasus.

44. Navy Arctic Roadmap, 11. The Bering Strait, according to Navy projections, will be ice-free for 23 weeks by 2020.

45. TSgt Catherine Schmidt, “109 AW Aids Canada with Operation Nunalivut 2015,” 109th Airlift Wing Public Affairs, 13 May 2015, http://www.109aw.ang.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/867625/109th-aw-aids-canada-with -operation-nunalivut-2015/. The 109th also honors commitments in Antarctica during its summer season.

46. US Naval War College, “Arctic Studies Group,” accessed 7 March 2017, https://www.usnwc.edu/Research ---Gaming/Arctic-Studies-Group.aspx.

*Colonel Conway (BA, MA, University of Alabama) is a military defense analyst at the Air Force Research Institute (AFRI), Maxwell AFB, Alabama. During his more than 30 years in the Air Force, he served as an intelligence officer with major assignments at Headquarters Air Intelligence Agency, North American Aerospace Defense Command, and the National Security Agency. He was the senior intelligence officer at Headquarters Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC), Robins AFB, Georgia, and held several wing and squadron intelligence assignments, including a combat tour with the II Direct Air Support Center in Pleiku Province, Republic of Vietnam. For his last active duty assignment, he was the chief, Counterdrug Support Division, Headquarters AFRC. Following active-duty and before he joined AFRI, Colonel Conway was a systems engineering and technical assistance contractor at the U-2 Directorate at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Robins AFB, Georgia, and a civilian adviser to the commander, Gordon Regional Security Operations Center, Fort Gordon, Georgia. He is a frequent contributor to Air and Space Power Journal.

The Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Establishment and Significance

Steinar Andresen*

G. Kristin Rosendal, PhD**

Major regional and global environmental agreements often feature scientific advisory panels. The most comprehensive and sophisticated advisory body is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Established in 1988, the panel is tasked with providing scientific overviews of the current state of knowledge on climate change and the potential environmental and socioeconomic impacts, based on research produced worldwide.

The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was established in 2012 to strengthen science–policy relations and interface “for the conservation of biodiversity, ecosystem services, long-term human well-being, and sustainable development.”1 The United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) had a common start at the 1992 Rio Conference. The many regional and global efforts to stem the problem of biodiversity loss predates Rio by several decades, and the IPCC predated Rio by four years. Modeled after the IPCC, the IPBES did not appear until almost 30 years later.2

We first examine the two formation processes, asking how could the IPCC be formed so quickly, compared to the IPBES? And secondly, what has been the significance of the IPCC in influencing decisions within the UNFCCC, and more generally in framing perceptions outside the UN framework? Given the similarities in design, what are the chances that the IPBES can influence the CBD?

Analyzing IPCC and IPBES Formation and Significance

Our analytical point of departure for the first research question is the theory tradition of analyzing the conditions necessary for international regimes to be created.3 There are three schools of thought on this issue: realist, liberalist, and social constructivist. For realists, a precondition for regime creation is the presence of a hegemon willing and able to take on the sizable costs involved. As the significance of hegemons regarding the establishment of international environmental regimes has been found to be limited,4 we focus on the more general concept of power, clearly relevant also for the creation of environmental regimes.5 The liberal school of thought underlines the significance of interests for regime creation, whereas social constructivists emphasize the key role played by knowledge and epistemic communities.6

Might the delay in establishing the IPBES be due primarily to interest-based factors, or was it a matter of knowledge-based factors? One explanation could be that the initial demands for the IPBES were politically controversial and advocated by weak parties. If the delay was due mainly to political conflicts, we may assume that the establishment of the IPBES happened because of changes in the interests of dominant actors. Alternatively, the establishment of the IPBES might be due to the emergence of new scientific evidence as to the need for such a body to respond to common problems.

The analytical backdrop to our second research question concerns how scientific assessments can influence global governance.7 Most scholars have focused on the significance of organizational design, pointing to the significance of securing a mix between the credibility and legitimacy of scientific advice.8 This implies securing a balance between scientific integrity and stakeholder involvement. Scientific research should be carried out independently, but some political involvement is needed to make it useable to policymakers.9 This is the chief argument for making both the IPCC and IPBES intergovernmental bodies.

The extent to which advisory panels make a difference does not depend solely on a more or less “optimal” organizational design; at least equally important is the nature of the issue-area within which the regime operates.10 The first dimension is the intensity of political conflicts characterizing the issue-area: the more politically controversial (“malign”) the issue-area, the less are the chances that scientific advice will be heeded. The second is the extent to which scientific consensus or uncertainty characterize the issue-area within which the advisory body and the political regime exist. The more scientific conflicts and uncertainty, the lower will be the chance of scientific influence. Other characteristics of the problem structure may also make a difference for the influence of science.11 Of relevance for the two issue-areas in question are the following: whether a feasible (technological) cure is available; if the effects are close in time; if problems affect the social center of the international community; if problems are developing rapidly; and if the effects are evident to the public. In each instance, a “yes” makes it more likely that scientific advice will be heeded.

The IPCC: Formation and Influence

Regime Formation Process

Although the IPCC was established quickly compared to the IPBES, it still took some 30 years from when the issue surfaced in scientific circles until the IPCC was established. Systematic scientific research on the earth’s climate system started in the late 1950s. In the 1970s, the political relevance of climate change was highlighted by the UN Environmental Program (UNEP). The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), UNEP and the International Council for Science played key roles in organizing a series of workshops in the 1980s. At a 1985 meeting organized by these three organization (the Villach Conference), scientists declared: “in the first half of the next century a rise of global mean temperatures would occur, which is greater than any in man’s history.”12 The Villach Conference initiated the establishment of a scientific body, the Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases (AGGG), under the auspices of the same organizations.

Not until 1988, however, did climate change enter the international political agenda, boosted by the Toronto Conference on the Atmosphere. This was not an intergovernmental conference but a forceful combination of activist scientists, activist policymakers, environmental nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and business representatives.13

It was within this expanding and creative science–policy interface that the IPCC was established. Accounts differ as to who was the main architect behind the IPCC. Some credit the UNEP and General Secretary Mustafa Tolba; others attribute it to informal discussions in the WMO. According to Shardul Agrawala, the United States was in a unique position, with by far the most cumulative expertise in climate-change research.14 However, there were strong differences of opinion among key US actors on how to proceed with this issue. According to Hannah Hughes, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of State preferred a knowledge-led convention process, whereas the Department of Energy opposed policy action.15 The outcome was a US proposal in 1986 to establish an intergovernmental scientific mechanism, which was expected to reduce the pressure for policy action.16 The US viewpoint was communicated to the WMO, which in 1987 decided to set up such a mechanism with UNEP. Formally the WMO and UNEP were thus the founding fathers of the IPCC, but what is perhaps its major feature—its intergovernmental nature—was the result of a proposal from the most powerful climate actor at the time, the United States.

Science clearly played an important role—as otherwise the IPCC would probably never have seen the light of day—lending support to the social constructivist approach for explaining regime creation. On the other hand, it is equally probable that if the scientists had dominated the field all by themselves, there would never have been an IPCC with its key intergovernmental component. This was largely the result of internal divisions of opinion within one actor. The fact that this actor was the United States reminds us that the power aspect should not be neglected when studying regime establishment. In fact, the IPCC proved much stronger than the United States envisioned. Moreover, it did not serve to divert attention from the policy impacts—rather the contrary. Also prominent in the process was leadership of several kinds, exerted by various types of actors.

The interests of the industrialized states were dominant, with the developing countries remaining more passive and skeptical. However, the IPCC may have been easier to accept thanks to its intergovernmental nature, which gave the developing countries some control over the process.17 Also, while the North won through on the IPCC, the South won regarding the political dimension, as the UNFCCC negotiations would be held directly under the auspices of the UN General Assembly.

IPCC: Influence in General and on the UNFCCC

A Balanced Institutional Design

The IPCC is organized into three working groups, various task forces, and a secretariat. Simply put, working group (WG) 1 works on science, WG 2 on impacts, and WG 3 on response strategies. The WGs publish full reports and summaries for policymakers. The main conclusions of these reports provide the basis for the synthesis report. After the WGs have resolved the final questions, the entire IPCC meets to approve these and finally to approve the synthesis report.18 Government representatives conduct a detailed review of the summary for policymakers. Thus, in the end, political control is tight, and political conflicts are not infrequent.19

Still, the scientific process is characterized by scientific independence and thorough review processes. Lead authors prepare the first drafts by synthesizing relevant scientific literature. Contributing authors help write special sections. These drafts then undergo two rounds of scientific review. With the Fourth Assessment Report, experts from more than 130 countries contributed; more than 450 lead authors received input from more than 800 contributing authors; and an additional 2,500 scientists reviewed the draft documents. The IPCC published Assessment Reports in 1990, 1995, 2001, 2007, and 2013.20

Many observers conclude that the IPCC has managed to ensure a good balance between legitimacy and credibility, thereby increasing its potential for influencing decision makers and the public at large.21 Bernd Siebenhüner stresses the significance of its inclusive intergovernmental nature, securing government ownership in the IPCC.22 This stood in contrast to the more independent AGGG, which did not achieve much. Others, however, have been more critical to the political control, which they see as diluting the scientific component.23

The IPCC has undergone significant changes over time, due not least to criticism from developing countries and actors skeptical to climate change.24 Efforts have also been made to increase the legitimacy of the IPCC towards the South by recruiting more scientists from the South and by providing them with financing from the Trust Fund. However, given the structural imbalance in scientific expertise between the North and the South, this represents a challenge that the IPCC must work on continuously.

The 2009 “Climategate” incident reinforced criticism from climate-skeptical groups. Renowned climate scientists had apparently sought to minimize the influence of critical views, while failing to document their own disputes. Moreover, the 2007 IPCC Report’s prediction that the Himalayas could lose all their glaciers in 25 years was shown to be wrong. These events prompted several reviews of IPCC procedures and the substance of its work.25 The report written by a committee chaired by former Princeton University president Harold Shapiro, along with others, endorsed the main conclusions of the IPCC. However, it was held that the IPCC had failed to live up to the calls for transparency and accountability characterizing the recent “governance revolution.”26 In response to the recommendations given, the IPCC established a task force to advance revisions of its procedures to restore its credibility.

Publication of the 2013 IPCC Report did not spark any major controversies. Although such incidents have harmed the IPCC’s reputation, when viewed over the course of its long existence, the IPCC has generally managed to balance credibility and legitimacy fairly well. In line with our analytical framework, the IPCC should therefore have a basis for influencing the climate negotiations and the public at large. More recently, a different issue has surfaced: the accusation that the lack of social science input is making the IPCC irrelevant to climate policy.27 It has also been held that the IPCC needs to become more solutions-oriented.28 The question remains: could making such adjustments reduce the deep-seated political conflicts surrounding the IPCC and its work?

Climate Change: A Malign Problem

The level of scientific consensus is now high, thanks not least to the IPCC. This does not mean there are no dissenting voices. But the level of scientific consensus or the organizational setup of this science–policy nexus are not the main problems when it comes to dealing with climate change. More challenging are the North–South political conflicts which contribute significantly to reducing the influence of scientific advice. Although the IPCC has convincingly argued why emissions should be reduced, they keep rising sharply in the Global South as the countries there continue their pursuit of industrial development.

The other indicators listed under point two assumed to affect the influence of scientific advice show this is a “malign” problem. When a feasible technological cure to the problem exists, scientific influence tends to be quite high.29 Simply put: It is easy to take on board scientific advice to reduce emissions when this can be done at little or no cost, as the international ozone regime has shown.30 However, with GHG emissions there are no similar quick technological fixes available, although technology has gradually made a positive difference. As to whether effects are close in time, here lies a major challenge for policymakers: the effects are long-term and uncertain, whereas the costs are up-front and high. That makes it difficult for scientists to influence decision makers. Furthermore, the effects are most severe for the South, which may reduce Northern willingness to act. However, the effects for the North are sufficiently negative to keep the issue high on the political agenda, contributing to sustained interest in scientific information. Are the negative consequences evolving rapidly and visibly? Here we find a mixed picture. For a long time, the consequences of climate change evolved gradually, with many effects remaining invisible. More recently, reports of natural disasters and dramatic media scenes have contributed to the growing impression of more rapid change and visible dangers around the globe, and that may make policymakers more inclined to listen to the warnings from the IPCC.

Overall, climate change is still a politically malign problem where it is difficult for scientists to get their message across. Still, while the North–South conflict has remained fairly constant, there have been changes in some of the other dimensions that may make it easier for scientists to make their message heard. Can we see signs of this among the public at large as well as in the climate negotiations?

IPCC Influence

We start with the question of the IPCC influence on the public, noting that this cannot be answered conclusively, as the issue of “complex causality” looms large. There are so many different sources of influence that it is impossible to ascertain precisely how much change in attention and behavior can be ascribed to the IPCC. Still, some indications can be noted. Especially in the Western world, perceptions have changed, and variations in climate are now more widely interpreted as effects of climate change. Climate considerations are also increasingly brought up in domestic decision making.31

The climate panel has probably been instrumental in contributing to this development. The panel has also used the media to an increased extent, and the environmental movement and the media have amplified the scientific message and spread it to reach the public. In 2007, the IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (together with former US vice president Al Gore), a clear sign of a period characterized by optimistic “climate hype.”

However, with the financial crisis came lessened interest in climate matters, showing that the attention span of the media and the public is vulnerable to the influence of other forces.32 More recently, general interest in climate change has again picked up, as shown both by the considerable attention given to the latest IPCC Report in 2013, and even more so the Paris Conference of the Parties (COP) in late 2015.

On balance, the IPCC can be said to have played an important role in raising awareness among the public, and its influence has increased over time. It is hard to envision the increasing calls for a green transformation without the significant contribution of the IPCC.

What has been the effect on the UN climate negotiations? Measuring this is easier, thanks to the closeness between the IPCC and the UNFCCC. Overall, the influence must be said to have been modest: the IPCC message has consistently been to reduce emissions, but instead they have increased by some 50 percent since the adoption of the UNFCCC. The first IPCC Report was prepared quickly, which may have contributed to the rapid adoption of the UNFCCC as well. However, while the IPCC Report called for a 60 percent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, the convention proved weak on this point. Due to differing views on the role of the IPCC, the panel was not acknowledged as the advisory body until later. Moreover, the Kyoto Protocol can hardly be said to be based on IPCC advice: it was a political compromise, and greenhouse gas emissions increased more steeply in the decade after its adoption than in the previous decade.

However, in line with our expectations, the influence of the IPCC seems to have increased over time. The 2° C target adopted at the 2009 Copenhagen COP was endorsed by the IPCC. This was taken a step further in the Paris Agreement with the aspirational 1.5° C target, an indication that policymakers are paying greater attention to scientific messages from the IPCC. Further, the climate negotiators have commissioned the IPCC to make a special report on how the 1.5-degree target can be achieved. It remains to be seen whether this increased attention to and the use of IPCC expertise will translate into necessary action on the ground.

IPBES: Formation and Influence

IPBES: Regime Formation Process

The concept of biodiversity surfaced in the 1980s,33 but awareness about human-induced species loss dates to the late seventeenth century and the extinction of the dodo. There is some scientific uncertainty regarding estimates as to the total number of species, but practically no scientific disagreement concerning the severity of biodiversity loss, estimated at about 100 times the natural background rate, that is what it would have been without human intervention.34

Numerous national and international efforts to stem the loss of biodiversity kept failing, and then scientific and political attention to biodiversity loss exploded in the late 1980s. A World Resources Institute (WRI) report warned that a quarter of the world’s species might have disappeared by 2050;35 this was followed by similar studies by the WRI, IUCN and UNEP.36 Along with the WRI and Environmental Data reports and the annual UNEP State of the Environment reports, this provided authoritative and unsettling overviews of the state of global biodiversity loss.

The international response was to negotiate the CBD (1989–1992). There were also early, but unsuccessful, efforts to create an IPCC-like scientific body for biodiversity.37 Then renewed efforts started outside of the CBD, with the call for the multistakeholder UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA).38 The MA involved more than 1,360 scientists from all over the world in assessing the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being. Their findings provided a state-of-the-art scientific assessment of conditions and trends in the world’s ecosystems and the services they provide, as well as the scientific basis for action to promote conservation and sustainable use.39 Along with The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity report,40 the MA stressed how the loss of ecosystem services linked to biodiversity loss has devastating effects on human well-being all over the world.41

In 2004, preceding Gore and the IPCC by three years, Wangari Maathai of Kenya was the first environmentalist to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded for her work on tree planting with the Green Belt Movement. In the aftermath of the MA, calls for an independent scientific platform gained added weight, leading first to an International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity (IMoSEB). The idea of the IMoSEB appeared in 2005, when French president Jacques Chirac launched a call for an “IPCC” for biodiversity. With the IMoSEB, an international steering committee was established, with 90 members from a range of disciplines and representing all regions. A consultative process ensued, and regional support for an IPCC-like platform for biodiversity began building up.

The new acronym, IPBES, emerged from the IMoSEB steering committee process in 2007. This was a European initiative, again headed by France. The parties debated how to secure scientific credibility and political legitimacy. Some called for a panel of scientific and political actors, while others preferred strengthening existing scientific networks, such as the CBD Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA). When the CBD COP 10 (held in Nagoya in 2010) recommended the establishment of the IPBES, this marked an important political step.42

The IPBES was established by UNEP at the request of the 65th session of the UN General Assembly in 2011. The UNEP, in cooperation with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Food and Agricultural Organization, and the UN Development Group, convened two plenary meetings to operationalize the IPBES. The first session was held in Nairobi in 2011 and the second in Panama City in 2012, where the IPBES was launched.

Assessing the Formation Process: Interest or Knowledge-based Delay?

A significant difference between the IPCC and IPBES concerns the role of key actors in the formation phases. The IPBES was promoted by European countries (primarily France and Norway), whereas the intergovernmental nature of the IPCC had been largely the idea of the United States. The IPBES was also opposed by the actors most crucial for addressing biodiversity issues—the Global South. To explain this, we need to examine the political and scientific arguments against the IPBES.

Similar to climate change, the biodiversity agenda was initially criticized by the South as being primarily Northern, but then the developing world came to see the CBD as their main success story in Rio.43 The victory of the South was largely normative, as the developing countries succeeded in broadening the scope of the CBD from purely a “preservation of wildlife” treaty to one encompassing the valuable domesticated genetic material. By including plant breeding and pharmaceutical bioprospecting, the South linked conservation issues to an access and benefit sharing regime. As major food plants originate in the South, recognition of the rapid loss of genetic diversity in domesticated plants and potential risks for food security provided the South with leverage. The North, with France and the United States as keen advocates of a wildlife preservation treaty, thus lost defining power over the CBD, and the United States never ratified the treaty.44 The West European initiative behind the creation of the IPBES harked back to the early phases of the CBD negotiations, with preservation trumping issues of equity. Not only did the IPBES lack the backing of dominant key actor, the United States—it also lacked backing from the Global South.

Anne Larigauderie and Harold A. Mooney concur that the IPBES delay was due principally to political concerns, mainly among developing countries that feared that the SBSTTA would lose political control of biodiversity issues.45 The SBSTTA has been criticized for being too political rather than providing the necessary salient, legitimate, and credible scientific advice.46 The IPBES process kept stalling, as parties failed to resolve the dilemma of creating a panel with the necessary political mandate while also remaining politically independent.47

Another worry was that the IPBES and an increased focus on scientific assessments could entail even less attention to funding for biodiversity conservation in the South.48 While the magnitude of the problem of biodiversity loss is comparable to climate change, overall attention to and relative funding for biodiversity have decreased significantly, possibly deflected by the growing focus on climate change.49

The lack of political will may have been accompanied by knowledge-based arguments against having yet another scientific assessment body. This is based on the existence of an extensive range of scientific assessments bodies within the biodiversity cluster, reflecting the long history of global and regional efforts to stem the loss of biodiversity. The Ramsar Convention has its Scientific and Technical Review Panel and is also aided by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Birdlife International, Wetlands International, and the World Wildlife Fund. The Bonn (Germany) Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) has a Scientific Council, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna is aided by Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce/WWF, the IUCN, UNEP, and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre. This abundance of forums also reflects broader organizational differences between the climate change and the biodiversity regimes. Climate change has one global UN treaty, whereas there are several biodiversity-related treaties within the UN family. Although the CBD is dominant here, this might make it more difficult to consolidate one scientific assessment body.

Another knowledge-based counterargument has come from within the academic community, criticizing the “pay to conserve” logic inherent in the ecosystem services approach.50 While that approach has been widely embraced politically as a means of achieving much-needed funding for biodiversity conservation, a more philosophically oriented debate has attacked the efforts of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the TEEB report, and in turn, the IPBES itself, depicting the ecosystem services approach as an unethical way of commercializing nature. This school of thought has been mainly confined to academic circles, and the issue was not much debated during the IPBES negotiations.51

The “commercialization of nature” debate has played out differently (or has not emerged) in the climate change debate, which is inherently characterized by markets, quotas and commercial interests. Here also, the North stands accused of paying off the poor so that it can continue its own consumerism, but this has not hampered the growth of emission markets.

In the end, the growing political and scientific argument favoring the IPBES was that prior efforts to consolidate and assess the state of biodiversity loss lacked the necessary political legitimacy and scientific clout. There was growing acknowledgement of the need for a scientific platform where advice could be communicated in an understandable manner.52 The Nobel Peace Prize award may have added an extra boost at the right time. Analytically, this spells little change in the cognitive factors and gradual change in political arguments explaining the establishment of the IPBES.

Potential for Influence

Institutional Design

As noted, the IPBES builds on the organization of the IPCC. However, there are a few central differences, and we discuss their implications here. The IPBES is mandated to strengthen the science–policy interface on biodiversity and ecosystem services, based on the platform’s three main goals of credibility, legitimacy, and relevance. The IPBES is further mandated with knowledge generation, assessments, policy-support tools, and capacity-building. Thus, the IPBES aims further than the IPCC; in addition to conducting assessments, the emphasis is on capacity-building and on including a broad range of knowledge systems.

IPBES membership has expanded rapidly, with 126 member states constituting its Plenary.53 The IPBES has a political body, the Bureau, with regionally balanced membership, and a multidisciplinary expert panel (MEP) with five members from each UN region. The MEP is a scientific body, but its composition is potentially open to political influence, as the regions are responsible for selecting members. About a thousand scientists worldwide contribute to the work of the IPBES on a voluntary basis. They are nominated by their governments or by organizations and selected by the MEP. Peer review is the key component, to ensure that the work of the IPBES meets the highest scientific standards.54

The knowledge component is added with stakeholder consultations preceding IPBES meetings. This is described as “breaking new ground in how research on social-ecological systems is assessed and how knowledge from different cultures is assimilated—scientific knowledge, indigenous knowledge and local knowledge.”55

The first session of the Plenary of IPBES in Bonn, Germany, in January 2013 agreed that only governments and MEAs related to biodiversity and ecosystem services may make requests to the platform.56 At IPBES-2 in Antalya, Turkey, in December 2013, the aim was to finalize the institutional and funding arrangements and adopt a five-year work program. The third meeting in Bonn in 2015 faced difficulties, with the many scoping reports awaiting approval, a budget with a US $20 million shortfall for completing agreed deliverables, and uncertain procedures for agreement on stakeholder engagement—all central to achieving the goal of legitimacy.57

Concerning the goal of credibility, the International Institute for Sustainable Development has noted that IPBES-3 still struggles with how to “strike a balance between scientific rigor and the needs of decision makers and other stakeholders.”58 Work on transparency and conflict of interest is also central; some of the experts involved in the assessment on pollinators and food production were concerned about possible conflicts of interest because of linkages with industry. Achieving the third goal of relevance will be costly, as it must involve all four IPBES functions.59 At IPBES-4 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in February 2016, delegates reached agreement on the assessment report about pollinators and food production.

The IPBES already has 126 member countries (the IPCC has 195), with equal representation from all UN regions. This indicates that the IPBES already enjoys rather high legitimacy despite the criticisms from the South. Legitimacy is increasing rapidly, compared to the early phases of the IPCC. At this early stage, the role of the IPBES is still unclear and disputed. It is basically a copy of the IPCC, with striking similarities in mandate and organization. IPBES’ subsidiary bodies are still nominated by governments—which seems likely to reduce its effectiveness as a scientific body.60 Still, also, the IPCC is accounted for as an intergovernmental body.

A redeeming aspect of the IPBES is that there are no formal ties between it and the CBD, and it cannot be instructed by the COPs.61 Still questions remains as to what is gained by circumventing the COP, while at the same time making great efforts to secure a representative IPBES in terms of region, disciplines, and gender.62

The IPBES differs from the IPCC in addressing capacity building and indigenous knowledge holders more extensively. The aim is to strengthen legitimacy, but this may fuel controversies over effectiveness and scientific credibility. Legitimacy problems are further exacerbated by the general lack of funding for biodiversity activities.

Biodiversity Loss: Little Scope for Scientific Influence

One criticism of the IPBES has been that it may serve to support the illusion that the loss of biodiversity is scientifically disputed.63 Despite the even higher level of scientific agreement regarding the seriousness of biodiversity loss, robust scientific consensus has not managed to halt the continued loss of biodiversity—due mainly to even more deep-rooted political conflicts than has been the case with climate change.64

Another barrier to scientific influence is the lack of feasible technological solutions. Compared to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and pollution-control measures, it is less obvious how technological solutions can resolve the issues of biodiversity.65 In turn, the problem of biodiversity loss is less attractive to investors because it is less amenable to commercially attractive solutions.66 Moreover, the IPBES will have a harder time identifying and agreeing on manageable tasks, such as the IPCC’s 2° C target. The “score” on the other dimensions used to characterize the malignancy of the issue-areas is also low: there is less visibility, the changes are more incremental, and the effects are least significant in the social center—the North.

Another complication is that while climate change is predominantly the result of unintended side effects of legitimate human activity, the loss of biodiversity also results from legitimate human activities. Such direct effects include land-use change and habitat deterioration caused by food and energy production, and harvesting depleting fish stocks. There is hence less economic revenue to be gained from mitigation activities, and it is harder to envision technological solutions. All this means that the IPBES can be expected to face even more of an uphill battle than did the IPCC.

Conclusions

We find several reasons why the IPCC was formed more quickly than the IPBES. Perhaps the most important factor was the power-based leadership of the United States, which was absent in the process towards IPBES. Leadership by NGOs, scientists, and policymakers was also stronger in the IPCC process than with the IPBES, which became more entangled in political processes. Resistance to the IPBES was stronger in the South, where it was seen as diverting attention from what the South regarded more important political priorities. For the South, accepting the IPCC may have been easier, as it was part of a tradeoff whereby the North got the IPCC, and the South got the UNFCCC process within the UN. Scientific uncertainty was more pronounced in the IPCC than in the IPBES, where relevant scientific panels had already been established.

Regarding influence on the political processes and more generally, the IPCC has had considerable success in communicating complex issues to the public, particularly in the North. Although the IPCC has achieved a good balance between integrity and involvement, its influence on the political process has been modest. The main reason is the malignancy of the issue in focus, reducing the room for scientific influence. However, more recently, IPCC influence has increased somewhat. This may be the result of a less malign problem structure, but an improved ability to communicate the message may also make a difference.

As to the IPBES, we can note a general lesson from regime theory: ghosts from the formation process are likely to haunt the implementation phase. The political controversies are likely to remain, especially if the IPBES fails to gain greater independence from politicians. However, political independence also may prove problematic, if key actors do not recognize the scientific agenda as legitimate. Legitimacy is a major point for the South and could give IPBES more trouble than the case with the IPCC. It is mostly the rich countries that have been asked to contribute to expensive implementation policies in climate change, unlike the situation in biodiversity.

Two other problems will make the job of the IPBES especially hard. The main reason for poor implementation of the CBD objectives is not a lack of scientific knowledge, but rather that biodiversity loss has not been prioritized globally, regionally, or nationally, in terms of funding. This is partly because of the difficulty in identifying focal solutions (like the 2° C target), and because biodiversity conservation is less amenable to technological solutions and less attractive to investments than climate change.

The main value of the IPBES lies in its ability to attract attention to the problem of biodiversity loss, similar to the main strength of the IPCC. Given the various challenges, the scope for the IPBES to contribute appears rather marginal. Still, an important lesson to be drawn from the IPCC is that it takes time to become relevant and influential.

Notes

1. Carlos Alredo Joly, “The Conceptual Framework of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services/IPBES,” Biota Neotrop 14 no. 1, 2 January 2014, http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1676 -06032014000100001.

2. Bernd Siebenhüner, “Changing Demands at the Science–Policy Interface: Organizational Learning in the IPCC,” in The Role of “Experts” in International and European Decision-Making Processes, eds. Monika Ambrus, K. Arts, Ellen Hey, and Helena Raulus. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

3. Oran R. Young and Gail Osherenko, “Testing Theories of Regime Formation: Findings from a Large Collaborative Research Project,” Regime Theory and International, ed. Volker Rittberger, Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).

4. Ibid.

5. Arild Underdal, “One Question, Two Answers,” in Environmental Regime Effectiveness: Confronting Theory with Evidence, eds. Edward L. Miles, Arild Underdal, Steinar Andresen, Jørgen Wettestad, Jon Birger Skjærseth, and Elaine M. Carlin. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002).

6. Peter M. Haas, Saving the Mediterranean: The Politics of International Environmental Cooperation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).

7. William C. Clark, Ronald B. Mitchell, and David W. Cash, “Evaluating the Influence of Global Environmental Assessments,” in Global Environmental Assessments: Information and Influence, eds. Mitchell, Clark, Cash, and Nancy M. Dickson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), 1–29.

8. Ibid.

9. Arild Underdal, “Science and Politics: The Anatomy of an Uneasy Relationship,” in Science and Politics in International Environmental Regimes, eds. Steiner Andresen, Tora Skodvin, Arild Underdal, and Jorgen Wettestad. (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2000), 1–21.

10. Arild Underdal, “The Politics of Science in International Resource Management: A Summary,” In International Resource Management, eds. S. Andresen and W. Østreng. (London: Belhaven Press, 1989), 253–69; Steinar Andresen, “The Role of Scientific Expertise in Multilateral Environmental Agreements: Influence and Effectiveness,” in The Role of “Experts,” eds. Ambrus et al, (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 105-26.

11. Ibid.

12. Shardul Agawala, “Context and Early Origin of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,” Climatic Change 39, no. 4 (1998): 605–20, 608.

13. Steinar Andresen and Shardul Agrawala, “Leaders, Pushers and Laggards in the Making of the Climate Regime,” Global Environmental Change 12, no. 1 (2002), 41–51.

14. Agawala, “Context and Early Origin,” 605–20.

15. Hannah Hughes, “Bourdieu and the IPCC Symbolic Power,” Global Environmental Politics 15, no. 6 (2015): 85–105

16. William Antholis and Strobe Talbott, Fast Forward: Ethics and Politics in the Age of Global Warming (Washington, DC: Brookings Focus Book, 2010).

17. Tora Skodvin, “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,” in Science and Politics in International Environmental Regimes, eds. Steiner Andresen, Skodvin, Arild Underdal, and Jorgen Wettestad (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 146-81.

18. Union of Concerned Scientists, The IPCC: Who Are They and and Why Do Their Climate Reports Matter? (2011), accessed 1 February 2016, http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/ipcc-backgrounder.html#.V0bIaGZJm70.

19. Siebenhüner, “Changing Demand”; Hughes, “Bourdieu and the IPCC,” 126–47.

20. Union of Concerned Scientists, The IPCC.

21. Skodvin, “The Intergovernmental Panel,” 146–81.

22. Siebenhüner, “Changing Demand,” 126–47.

23. Peter M. Haas, “When Does Power Listen to Truth? A Constructivist Approach to the Policy Process,” Journal of European Public Policy 11, no. 4 (2004), 569–92.

24. Hughes, “Bourdieu and the IPCC.”

25. Steinar Andresen and Elin Boasson, “International Climate Cooperation: Clear Recommendations, Weak Commitments,” in International Environmental Agreements, eds. Steiner Andresen, Elin Lerum Boasson and Geir Hønneland (London: Routledge, 2012), 49–66.

26. “Climate Change Assessment Must Try Harder,” The Economist, 4 September 2010: 78–79.

27. David Victor, “Embed the Social Science in Climate Policy,” Nature 520, no. 7545 (2015), 27–29.

28. Hoesung Lee, “Turning the Focus to Solutions, Editorial,” Science 350, no. 6264 (2015), 1007.

29. Andresen, “The Role of Scientific Expertise in Multilateral Environmental Agreements,” in The Role of Experts, eds. Monika Ambrus et al, 105–26.

30. Jon Birger Skjærseth, “International Ozone Policies: Effective International Cooperation,” in International Environmental Agreements, eds. Andresen, Boasson and Hønneland, 38–48.

31. Andresen and Boasson, “International Climate Cooperation,” 49–61.

32. Ibid.

33. Edward Wilson, ed., Biodiversity (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988).

34. Vernon Heywood, Global Biodiversity Assessment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 232; Global Environment Outlook (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal, 2014).

35. Walter Reid and Kenton Miller, Keeping Options Alive: The Scientific Basis for the Conservation of Biodiversity (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 1989).

36. Jeffrey McNeely, Kenton Miller, Walter Reid, Russell Mittermeier, and Timothy Werner, Conserving the World’s Biological Diversity (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 1990); World Resources Institute, The World Conservation Union, United Nations Environment Programme with the Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Global Biodiversity Strategy: Guidelines for Action to Save, Study and Use Earth’s Biotic Wealth Sustainably and Equitably (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute (WRI), 1992; WRI, Biodiversity Prospecting (Washington, DC: WRI, 1993).

37. Peter Johan Schei (former chair of Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)-Subsidiary Body of Scientific, Technical, and Technological Advice (SBSTTA), leader of the Norwegian delegation to CBD negotiations, and Director of the Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management), interview by the author, 22 October 2015.

38. Anne Larigauderie and Harold A. Mooney, “The Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Moving a Step Closer to an IPCC-like Mechanism for Biodiversity,” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2 (2010), 9–14, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2010.02.006.

39. Millienium Assessment (MA), Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Ecosystems and Human Well-Being, Biodiversity Synthesis (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 2005).

40. European Communities, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Interim Report (Wesseling, Germany: Welzel and Hardt, 2008).

41. MA, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

42. Larigauderie and Mooney, “Intergovernmental Science–Policy,” 3.

43. G. Kristin Rosendal, The Convention on Biological Diversity and Developing Countries (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2000).

44. Ibid.

45. Larigauderie and Mooney, “The Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform,” 2.

46. Thomas Koetz, Peter Bridgewater, Sybille van den Hove, and Bernd Siebenhüner, “The Role of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice to the Convention on Biological Diversity as a Science–Policy Interface,” Environmental Science and Policy 11 (2008), 505–16.

47. Schei, interview.

48. S. Faizi, “IPBES: An Unbearable Burden,” Countercurrents, 19 December 2012, http://www.counter currents.org /burden191212.htm.

49. Diogo Verissimo, Douglas C. MacMillan, Robert J. Smith, Jennifer Crees, and Zoe G. Davies, “Has Climate Change Taken Prominence over Biodiversity Conservation?,” BioScience, 11 June 2014, doi10.1093/biosci/biu079.

50. Ulrich Brand and Alice B. M. Vadrot. “Epistemic Selectivities and the Valorization of Nature: The Cases of the Nagoya Protocol and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES),” Law, Environment and Development Journal (LEAD) 9, no. 2 (2013), 202, http://www.lead-journal.org/content/13202.pdf.

51. Ibid.

52. Larigauderie and Mooney, “The Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform,” 3.

53. IPBES, “About IPBES,” accessed 16 April 2017, http://www.ipbes.net/about-us.

54. IPBES, “About IPBES.”

55. Stockholm Resilience Centre, “Biodiversity: Breaking New Ground, http://www.stockholmresilience.org/21/research/research-news/2016-02-29-breaking-new-ground.html, accessed 16 April 2017, 1.

56. IISD Reporting Services, “First Meeting of the Plenary of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services,” 26 January 2013, http://www.iisd.ca/ipbes/ipbes1/.

57. IISD Reporting Services, “Third Session of the Plenary of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services,” 12 January 2015, http://enb.iisd.org/ipbes/ipbes3/12jan.htm, 11.

58. Earth Negotiations Bulletin, “Summary of the Third session of the Plenary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services,” ENB 31 no. 17, 12 January 2015, http://enb.iisd.org/vol31 /enb3120e.html.

59. Ibid., 11.

60. Schei, interview.

61. Christian Prip (former chair of CBD–SBSTTA and senior policy analyst at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute), in interview with the author, 9 October 2015.

62. Jasper Montana and Maud Borie, “IPBES and Biodiversity Expertise: Regional, Gender and Disciplinary Balance in the Composition of the Interim and 2015 Multidisciplinary Expert Panel,” Conservation Letters 9, no. 2 (2016), 138–42.

63. S. Faizi, “Unbearable Burden,” 1–3.

64. Sebastian Oberthür and G. Kristin Rosendal, Global Governance of Genetic Resources: Access and Benefit Sharing after the Nagoya Protocol (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014).

65. Martin Jänicke and Stefan Lindemann, “Governing Environmental Innovations,” Environmental Politics 19, no. 1 (2010), 127–41.

66. G. Kristin Rosendal and Steinar Andresen, “Institutional Design for Improved Forest Governance through REDD: Lessons from the Global Environment Facility,” Ecological Economics 70, no. 11 (2011), 1908–15.

*The author is a research professor at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Norway. He has been a guest researcher at the University of Washington-Seattle, Princeton University, and the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC. He has also held a part-time position at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Austria and has been a full professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway, and an adjunct professor at the Pluricourts Center of Excellence, University of Oslo. Professor Andresen has worked mostly with international issues and has published extensively worldwide.

**G. Kristin Rosendal is a research director and professor at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute. She holds a doctorate in political science and has published extensively on issues relating to international regimes on environment and trade, with a focus on access and benefit sharing and intellectual property rights to genetic resources (see www.fni.no for a complete list of publications). With Sebastian Oberthür, she is the editor of Global Governance of Genetic Resources: Access and Benefit Sharing in the aftermath of the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention of Biological Diversity in 2010.

Flawed Democracy

The Bane of Ghana’s Success in Curbing Corruption

Kofi Nsia-Pepra, PhD*

Democracy is widely expected to restrain corruption.1 Democratic institutions, politics, and commitments to rule of law and accountability facilitate the discovery, publicity and punishment of corrupt behaviors.2 The ethic of corruption aversion emerges spontaneously as part of the democratization process. Indeed, global corruption rankings show a visible, if imperfect, tendency for democracies to cluster at the “less corrupt” end of rankings while undemocratic societies dominate the other extreme (See Table 1). Ghana has proven to be an exception to the rule. Despite being touted as a vibrant emerging democracy in Africa and rated as a full democracy by the Freedom House, corruption is endemic in Ghana. Ghana’s exceptionalism is simply due to its mischaracterization by Freedom House as a full democracy rather than flawed democracy as appropriately characterized by the Economic Intelligence Unit (see table 1). The mischaracterization has masked the exploration of the correlation between Ghana’s “democracy “and its endemic corruption despite the numerous scholarly works.

The paper fills this gap by diagnosing the inherent illiberal practices in Ghana’s democracy that are incompatible with democratic principles of accountability and sustain corruption. It draws extensively on institutional theoretical arguments, existing literature and published data sets that build on authoritative in-depth studies such as relevant Transparency International (TI) reports and related seminal surveys. The study, in line with the theoretical arguments on democracy and reduced corruption, spans between 1993–2016 when Ghana has experienced uninterrupted democratic elections and transfers of power to the winning party.

The paper finds that Ghana’s endemic corruption is embedded in its flawed democracy. Ghana’s democracy is flawed with illiberal practices such as monetized politics, winner take-all politics, vote buying, electoral frauds and violence, political vigilantism, judicial corruption and selective justice, and a lack of punishment of the politically connected corrupt persons. These illiberal practices are incompatible with democratic ideals of rule of law and accountability and perpetuate corruption. The recent revelations of corruption involving officials in governance, judiciary, bureaucracy and their cronies in the private sector are clear manifestations of Ghana’s failure in fighting corruption.3

The rest of the paper unfolds as follows: Section two discusses the theoretical framework underpinning the study, viz. democracy and corruption. Section three provides a brief literature review on corruption in Ghana. Section four provides an overview of corruption in Ghana. Section five discusses the illiberal practices of Ghana’s flawed democracy and corruption. The study in section six makes policy recommendations to curb corruption in Ghana and conclude.

Table. EUI Democracy Index and TI Corruption Index 2015

Countries

EIU (Dem)

CPI

Norway (Full Democracy)

9.93 (1)

87

Sweden (Full Democracy)

9.58 (2)

89

Switzerland (Full Democracy)

9.9(6)

86

Mauritius (Full Democracy)

8.28(18)

53

Ghana ( Flawed Democracy)

6.86 (53)

47

Tanzania ( Hybrid Democracy)

5.58 (91)

3

Central African Rep. (Authoritarian)

1.57(164)

24

Chad (Authoritarian)

1.50(165)

22

Syria (Authoritarian)

1.43(166)

18

North Korea (Authoritarian)

1.08(167)

8

Sources: A. The Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) Democracy Index 2015

The EIU index values are used to place countries within one of four types of regime:

1. Full democracies: scores of 8-10

2. Flawed democracies: score of 6 to 7.9

3. Hybrid regimes: scores of 4 to 5.9

4 Authoritarian regimes: scores below 4

The numbers in brackets are ranks among 167 states

B. Transparency International corruption index (CPI) 2015http://www.transparency.org/cpi2015

The CPI currently ranks 177 countries “on a scale from 100 (very clean) to 0 (highly corrupt)”

Countries above 50 are less corrupt and those below 50 are corrupt.

Theoretical Framework: Democracy and Corruption

TI and Ghana’s National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP-2012 -2021) Report define corruption as the “misuse of entrusted power for private gain” to include both the public and private sectors. These include bribery, embezzlement, and misappropriation, abuse of power, patronage, nepotism, and conflict of interest. The definition and measurement of democracy has been extensively debated. The minimalists, such as the Freedom House, define democracy as a political system that holds relatively fair, contested multiparty elections on a regular basis, with universal adult suffrage. Electoral democracies meet the minimalist requirement but most elections in nascent democracies such as Ghana’s are sometimes flawed with malpractices. Considerable percentage of states rated by Freedom House as electoral democracies are not consolidated democracies.4 Freedom House’s electoral democracy measure is a thin concept. A more meaningful concept of democracy that goes beyond Freedom House’s democratic electoralism uses western liberal democracy as the model for measuring a matured democracy. This model entails more than procedural elements such as elections and includes substantive elements such as the rule of law, and accountability.5 The EIU’s Democracy Index includes some features of substantive democracy. Ghana, categorized by Freedom House as a free democracy, is categorized by the EIU as “flawed” democracy (See Table 1). This paper uses EIU’s definition.

Democracy and Corruption

Most research captures a negative relationship between democracy and corruption, with more democracy leading to less corruption.6 Moreno argues that democratic institutions normally diminish the possibilities of corruption. Wayne Sandholtz and William Koetzle find that a nation’s years under democracy have a negative relationship with perceived levels of corruption.7 In other words, the longer democratic norms and values have informed politics in a country, the more ingrained and potent those norms will be. Empirical surveys have found a striking correlation between more democracy and less corruption. Of the 20 least corrupt countries in the 2005 TI Corruption Perception Index, 18 are developed democracies, the exceptions being Hong Kong and Singapore. The most corrupt countries are flawed democracies and authoritarian regimes. Theoretically, democratic institutions, politics, and commitments to rule of law and accountability facilitate the discovery, publicity and punishment of corrupt behaviors.8 The ethic of corruption aversion emerges spontaneously as part of the democratization process. According to Sandholtz and Koetzle, institutional and normative components of democracies tend to suppress corruption.9 Matured democracies are open governments with deeply entrenched democratic norms that increase the propensity to expose and punish corrupt officials. Institutionalized democratic principles of checks and balances and rule of law constrain officials from corrupt behaviors. The institutional argument is premised on normative argument. Enforcement institutions punish corrupt behaviors only when there are shared norms that conceptualize corruption as antagonistic to basic democratic values. Corruption is fundamentally undemocratic and ethically unacceptable in matured liberal democracies because it violates democratic values of openness and equality, norms that are central to functional democracies.

Flawed or immature democracies, however, experience upsurges of corruption (because they lack the institutional requisites to yield higher administrative quality and capacity that are normally associated with consolidated democracies to deal with corruption.10 A flawed democracy is defective and is marked by impaired democratic attributes that sustain corruption despite having elections. EIU categorizes immature democracies into hybrid and flawed. Hybrid regimes are flawed with substantial electoral irregularities that often prevent elections from being both free and fair. The judiciary is not independent, and there is weak civil society and rule of law as well as widespread corruption that goes unpunished.11 According to Fareed Zakaria, an illiberal or flawed democracy entails an elected polity where liberty and rule of law are secure in theory but violated in practice because of massive corruption, flawed electoral processes and disregard for the rule of law to punish corrupt officials.12 They are democratic in word but not in substance. Flawed democracies are corrupt because they lack the established democratic norms, institutions and the political will to expose and punish corrupt officials. Institutions of accountability are limited in curbing corruption mainly because they are captured by the ruling elites who are beneficiaries of the status quo.

Brief Literature Review on Ghana’s Corruption

Several studies on Ghana’s corruption have examined the causes, effects, and anti-corruption agencies made various proposals. The section briefly discusses the most important of these works. Victor Levine attributes corruption to the perversion of traditional customs, emergence of new elite which neither the traditional nor the colonial systems socialized to accept responsibility, and increasingly fragmented post-independence bureaucratic structures.13 Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi finds low income, greed, legal and administrative laxities, corrupt criminal justice system and associated weak law enforcement and limited punishment to explain the prevalence of corruption.14 Alan Doig et al. identify unrealistic ambitions, inconsistent funding, and political resistance to anti-corruption as reasons for agencies’ ineffectiveness.15 Dr. Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai attributes corruption to the lack of political will by the political leadership.16 Fortune Agbele attributes corruption to low incumbent accountability, weak enforcement of anticorruption laws and low normative constraint among ordinary citizens who hardly mobilize themselves to demand for a more accountable and transparent governance.17

According to the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP) Report, the causes of corruption in Ghana include institutional weaknesses, poor ethical standards, including limited commitment to the values of integrity and self-discipline, skewed incentives structure, and insufficient enforcement of laws within a patrimonial social and political context. The NACAP (2015-2024) recommends public capacity building, institutional efficiency, accountability and transparency, effective investigations and prosecution of corrupt conduct as necessary measures to fight corruption in Ghana. The lacunae are that the literature does not particularly examine the correlation between Ghana’s flawed democracy and corruption. This paper fills the gap.

Brief Survey of Corruption in Ghana

Since independence, Ghana has been blighted with pandemic corruption hindering its development.18 With democratization in 1993, anticorruption agencies, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice in 1993, the Serious Fraud Office in 1998, and the Economic and Organized Crime Office which replaced it in 2010, were established. The Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition of key public and nongovernmental bodies was also established on 13 March 2001. However, corruption remains a menace despite the fact that democracies reduce corruption. Ghana persistently scores below 50 on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean) on the annual Corruption Perceptions Index report.

Many theoretical reasoning explains Ghana’s corruption. The poverty theory opines that public officials indulge in corruption for survival due to their meagre salaries^19 but this does not morally and legally justify corruption. It is also inapplicable to highly paid corrupt public officials motived purely by greed. The cultural relativists argue that the Ghanaian culture of appreciation and hospitality where gifts are given in return for favors is an established social norm.20 The Ghanaian social system is largely nurtured and influenced by the principles of family connections, kinship or tribal ties and social reciprocity, which breed favoritism, cronyism and nepotism.21 Logong Raditlhokwa blames African corruption almost solely on unethical African leadership.22 Unethical leadership has festered moral decadence and dysfunctional institutions that facilitate the abuse of government power. Imitation theory argues that Ghanaians imitate the lifestyles of corrupt rich persons. Corruption also flourishes with institutional restraints and weak regulatory regimes. According to the rent-seeking theory, corruption results from excessive government intervention in the economy and its monopoly over supply of public services such as issuance of business licenses or permits.23 The “grease the wheel” theory posits that corruption can be helpful for development in dysfunctional markets.24 In a dysfunctional system, “short-cuts” through “facilitation payments” to expedite actions on routine services, such as issuing licenses to avoid costly delays are common.

Corruption has devastating developmental ramifications. Some scholars argue that corruption could positively impact states’ economic and political development.25 Gunnar Myrdal points to corruption as a deliberate lubricant to a sluggish or dysfunctional economy.26 Others show corruption deters investment^27 and diverts from the state’s much needed fund for productive endeavors and national development. “Facilitation moneys” paid to public officials are recoverable through either increased cost or low-quality projects such as roads or materials used.28 Taxpayers become burdened with either costly or inferior quality projects that would require costly upkeep.29 Corruption increases the prices of goods and services denying ordinary Ghanaians their basic needs. Corruption exploits the poor by diverting resources from them to rich Ghanaians. It, thus, exacerbates the existing exploitation and poverty of ordinary Ghanaians. Corruption stifles initiative and creativity, nourishes mediocrity, feeds unemployment and undermines meritocracy.30 Nepotism and favoritism undermine meritocracy in organizational practices and yield poor work behaviors and productivity. Corruption lowers Ghana’s human development capacity. Corruption decimates democratic values and engenders institutional distrust, eroding citizens’ trust and confidence in state institutions.31 Judicial corruption results in perversion of justice, selective or “victors’” justice, and weakened rule of law. Corruption has corroded Ghana’s moral fiber with an at times total loss of conscience. Altruistic civic values have become more corrupt and people tolerate corrupt behaviors because most corrupt officials go unpunished.32 Corruption humiliates, degrades and violates the human rights of the poor. The corrupt inherently consider the lives of the ordinary majority poor, meaningless and useless and therefore expendable. Vote buying violates the right of other candidates to equality and the right to participate in governance. It discriminates between the high-income earner and the low-income earner.

Women and children suffer the direct and indirect “poisonous” effects of corruption the most.33 Sexual extortion dehumanizes and denigrates the human dignity of women. Discrimination against women who refuse sexual exploitation violates their rights to equal opportunities. Corruption also contributes to intergenerational inequality as societies often fall into vicious circles of inequality and corruption.34 Generations of the poor have suffered from posttraumatic poverty syndrome where there is intergenerational transmission of poverty trauma resulting from corruption. The phenomenon centers not only on trauma and multigenerational oppression, but also on unjust enrichment by corrupt officials and unjust impoverishment of the poor that have been passed on to the next generation. The legacy is the huge inequality existing between the descendants of the corrupt rich officials and descendants of the poor. Posttraumatic poverty syndrome among the poor includes psychological scars of internalized self-loathing, fear of diminished human dignity and family instability because sufferers lack the same life chances and life experiences compared to descendants of corrupt officials. The poor simply live on the periphery of mainstream Ghanaian society.

The Bane: Ghana’s Flawed Democracy and Corruption

Despite being touted as a model democracy in Africa, Ghana has increasingly lapsed into flawed democracy. The EIU rates Ghana as a flawed democracy (See table 1), and Kwame Insaidoo calls it a “dysfunctional democracy.”35 Ghana’s democracy is fraught with “illiberal” practices that are incompatible with liberal democratic ideals and sustain corruption. Ghana’s democracy is riddled with excessive executive power and related “institutional capture,” zero-sum game winner-take-all politics, monetized politics, deficient punishment, electoral malpractices, political vigilantism and violence, political patronage, and selective justice. The Constitution has concentrated excessive power in the presidency,36 dwarfing other branches of government. The resulting “institutional capture” and concomitant institutional weaknesses has festered systemic corruption in Ghana because co-opted appointees lack the moral courage to hold the executive and party members who appointed them accountable for malpractices. Anticorruption agencies such as the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Serious Fraud Office/Economic and Organised Crime Office, for example, have been criticized for lacking independence and being subject to political pressure; since their directors and board members are appointed by the executive.37 These anticorruption agencies also lack investigational independence and prosecutorial powers. Nonstate actors, particularly the civil society, generally play significant roles in democratic consolidation and championing anticorruption reforms. The capture of the state and institutions by ruling elites has rendered the civil societies’ efforts ineffectual. Patronage and favoritism have divided, along party lines, citizens and civil societies into beneficiaries and the marginalized.

The rule of law and punishment of violators are cardinal ideals of matured liberal democracies. Democratic commitments to rule of law and accountability facilitate the discovery, publicity and punishment of corrupt behaviors. Principal requirements of democratic governance such as accountability, punishment, transparency, responsiveness, and informational openness are often lacking. Effective combat of corruption requires that offenders, irrespective of their social status or political affiliation, be exposed and severely punished. That almost never happens in Ghana. Allegations of corruption involving high-level public officials and cohorts of the ruling party usually go unpunished.38 In 2005, the CHRAJ charged Dr. Richard Anane, a minister of state in Ghana president John Kufuor’s government, with corruption and conflict of interests and using state facilities for his personal gain. The Supreme Court dismissed the case ruling that the CHRAJ did not have jurisdiction to investigate.39 Other notable corruption cases that have gone unpunished are the Mabey and Johnston case,40 mysterious “Woyomegate”41 Savannah Accelerated Development Authority project, the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency scandal, the AMERI Power deal and the Smarty bus rebranding deal. Ghana’s political leadership has displayed relative indifference to the moral culpability of elected officials. The lack of punishment is partly due to judicial corruption. The judiciary is corrupt, and some magistrates receive bribes and set criminals free. In 2015, the celebrated undercover journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas exposed 34 judges involved in corruption by accepting and making demands for bribes to throw away cases including robbery, murder and corruption.42 Criminally motivated delays, manipulation of processes and dubious decisions have led to perversion of justice and selective justice that undermine the rule of law and deterrent punishment of corruption. Thus, corruption thrives because rewards are potentially greater than risks.

Ghana’s democracy is also afflicted with a hyperaggressive, winner-take-all zero-sum political system in which the winning party packs political positions, the bureaucracy and courts with its cronies. The system entails a capture of political power and access to vast network of state resources. Ghana’s political system is beset with deeply entrenched political patronage, nepotism and clientelism.43 Contracts and official positions are awarded to party loyalists at all levels of the civil service and parastatal structure.44 Political patronage pervades the culture and practice of public and state sector corporate governance.45 The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Business Development Committee, chaired by the trade and industry minister, Dr Ekow Spio Garbrah, and tasked to create jobs for NDC members, has been condemned as unconstitutionally perpetuating cronyism, patronage and discrimination.46 Ghana’s flawed democracy is fraught with increasing clientelization, winner-take-all politics, and accompanying political and ethnic polarization. Patronage politics has corroded Ghana’s democratic institutions and ideals and has also encouraged corruption in all fabrics of Ghanaian society. The 2008 Afrobarometer Survey shows that citizens’ corruption perception of the office of the presidency, Parliament, the police and the judiciary from 2003–2008 has greatly increased and is very high (See Figure 1) In the period 2002–2014, the proportion of Ghanaians who think that the members of the national executive (president and officials in his office) are involved in corruption has increased by 36 percent. 47

Figure 1. Survey Showing Citizens Corruption Perception with some parts of government in Ghana 2003–2008

*(Source: Afrobarometer, Ghana 2008, see http://www.afrobarometer.org/countries/ghana-1.)

The electoral processes are flawed with manipulations, vote buying, bloated registers, multiple foreigners and underage voting, political violence, political vigilantism and intimidation of voters by rented muscle men to skew the electoral results. Thus, elections remain largely a case of “to the rigger, the victory.” Ghana’s political system is monetized: electorates are swayed by monetary, material and particularistic gains and vote for the highest bidder. Monetized politics has skewed the democratic process in favor of those with access to money including illicit money.48 Parliamentary and other political positions are auctioned and obtained by the highest bidder.49 The Electoral Commission has failed to enforce campaign finance laws that require political parties to submit audited accounts as required by statute.50 Political parties deploy “muscle” that includes violent or criminal groups that scare off opponents and intimidate others to influence the elections.51 Ghana’s elections are fraught with interparty tension, organized thuggery and violence between the supporters of the NDC and New Patriotic Party (NPP). Examples include electoral violence at Akwatia, Atiwa, Tain, Yendi, Bawku Central, Tamale Central, Chereponi, and Odododiodio constituencies. The culprits went unpunished. There are also instances of intraparty violence and intimidation between supporters of different factions within the NPP and NDC. The rhetoric of official and unofficial party spokespersons has become more belligerent. Political discussions degenerate into deranging invectives and shouting matches to intimidate opponents. This can also increase ethnic tensions.52

Ghana’s democracy is afflicted with moral decadence and culture of “unethical materialism.” Corruption is socially embedded in the “logics” of “unethical materialism,” a system of mindless material acquisition of riches, whether illicit or not, and glorified by Ghanaian society. It is a system where altruistic social capital and socially useful citizenship are subordinated to financial and material wealth. This has weakened social values, with broader public interests and social responsibility being subordinated to the enhancement of personal material gains.53 Ghanaians have put inordinate value on wealth accumulation as personal success. Prestige is measured by wealth rather than an individual’s civic contributions to society. This has precipitated a culture of ethical deficiency lacking a sense of nationhood and a sense of “public duty.” The consequence is the exploitation of both public and private institutions for mindless corruption and primitive accumulation of wealth. The unethical and amoral behavior of corrupt elected and bureaucratic official has spilled over and simmered down into the fabric core of the Ghanaian society.

The Way Forward: Good Governance

Good governance that encapsulates political will, deterrent punishment, effective laws and agencies and efficient administration, is fundamental to Ghana’s extrication from its endemic corruption (see Figure 2)

Figure 2. Framework of Corruption Control

Good governance is inherent in matured democracies that foster political will to fight and curb corruption. The World Bank finds crisis of governance as an underlying litany of Africa’s developmental problems.54 Good governance encompasses democratic ideals of participation, rule of law, separation of powers, checks and balances, transparency, equity and inclusiveness, and accountability. Together, these preclude the need, incentive and opportunity for corruption.55 Good governance requires fair legal frameworks and impartial enforcement of the rule of law. This requires an independent, impartial and incorruptible judiciary and police force. It is a system of separation of powers and checks and balances whereby lawful government actions are checked by the division of power between mutually interdependent and autonomous legislative, executive and judicial bodies. No institution or individual can thwart an investigation into corruption and the punishment of corrupt persons. Good governance values equity and inclusiveness that treats citizens equally and guarantees them equal opportunities.

It requires effective laws that define corruption offenses, their concomitant punishment and the powers of the enforcement agencies. Having tough laws does not guarantee effective enforcement. An effective, autonomous and resourced anticorruption enforcement agency with investigational and prosecutorial powers is required. The agency’s response to corruption must be prompt, resolute and justice oriented. Laws and anticorruption agencies, no matter how effective, must be complemented by deterrent punishment. Detection, prosecution and punishment stop offenders and deter would-be violators. Ghana needs a regime of deterrent punishment to signal to potential violators that the Ghanaian society does not brook corruption. Punishment must be swift and harsh to have the desired effect.

A vital component of good governance is efficient administration that values integrity, incorruptibility and accountability. A committed exemplary leadership is a major catalyst fostering efficient administration. Such administration is guided by a code of ethical behaviors and is responsive to the needs of the citizenry. The collective interests supersede familial, party and other parochial interests. It is void of nepotism, cronyism, favoritism, and discrimination in allocation of national resources and public positions. An efficient administration values meritocracy that ensures that the right persons with the right values and expertise are in the public service and political positions. It ensures the rule of law to demonstrate to the public the government’s resolve to fight corruption.

Political will is pivotal to good governance and successful anticorruption reforms but it is worryingly absent in Ghana’s anticorruption efforts. Political will simply refers to the sincerity of a government’s pledge to control corruption both by words and deeds. Exemplary leadership nurtures political will among the citizens and requires the leadership to behave with integrity and honesty to impartially enforce the rule of law and punish corrupt persons. If the leadership is corrupt or fails to investigate and punish corrupt officials, bureaucrats and civil servants may be spurred into indulging in corruption. This affects public support and political will in the fight against corruption. Building political will must involve a coalition of stakeholders including political parties, anticorruption agencies, grassroots and international partners. Political will can be championed by the “Lone Ranger,” a patriotic, bold and morally upright anticorruption champion who has requisite integrity and tenacity to lead a crusade against corruption. Vibrant civil society can be an active partner in shaping the reform agenda and monitoring the reform process, energizing the public to achieve the desired results. Ghana’s international partners, particularly the donor community, can also foster or build political will by identifying and protecting anticorruption “champions.” They need to strengthen their collaborative partnerships with Ghanaian civil society coalitions in monitoring governments’ commitments in the formulation and implementation of anticorruption reforms. They must make enforcement of anticorruption reforms a condition for financial or other assistance to nurture political will to fight corruption.

Good governance requires Ghana to make a paradigm shift from zero-sum game “winner-take-all” politics to the more inclusive “win-win game” political system. The paper recommends the enactment of a proportional representation appointment system where positions are allocated to ensure party, ethnic, gender and other relevant balances for the desired political inclusiveness and unity. The winner-take-all politics is primarily the result of the “winner-take-all economy’” where the winners jealously prevent losers from enjoying the economic spoils. We need to remove the magnet-predatory monetary gains, to end corruption in politics through preventive and punitive measures.

Demonetization of Ghana’s democracy is fundamental to its good governance. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated, “We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”56 A system of institutionalized enforcement of assets declaration and monitoring, along with criminalization of unethical behavior would disincentives public officials from corruption. Bribery of voters by candidates for political office and receipt of such bribes should be criminalized and punished. Ghana needs legislative limitations on money in politics. Campaign contributions must be well monitored and regulated to prevent corruption and provide a more politically equitable election landscape. An adequate cap on individual and corporate campaign contributions to candidates and political parties is highly recommended. Ghana can alternatively consider a public financed election model that is not reliant on private financing. The recommended threshold for political parties to qualify for public funding is obtaining “5 %” of the popular votes in the last general election.57

The constitutional review should revise the appointment powers of the president. As US president Woodrow Wilson said, “The history of liberty is a history of limitations of government power, not the increase of it.”58 In line with this, it is recommended that the president’s appointment of ministerial positions should have a super majority parliamentary approval (two-thirds majority). The appointments of heads of key constitutional bodies and governance institutions must be transparent and done by a committee that has pluralistic representation of the social forces of civilian society, including non-government organizations, Parliament and political parties. The committee must vet candidates and recommend three candidates to the president to nominate one for parliamentary approval with a super majority. Security of tenure for senior officials is a constitutional necessity to end the pervasive reshuffling and replacement of public officers by party activists after elections.

Corruption is a moral sin and given our ‘addiction’ to corruption, Ghana needs a “collective moral detoxification crusade.” The acceptance of corruption and the general public’s despondency about curbing corruption need be tackled first. Ethical deficiency can be remedied by moral education involving all stakeholders. The moral education should inculcate in Ghanaians the African spirit of Ubuntu, which emphasizes the virtues of humanness in humility, compassion, communalism and African patriotism that provide the veritable starting point for the development of the moral fiber to fight corruption. We must awaken the spirit of civic duty and teach Ghanaians the responsibilities of citizenship and dedication for all to be socially useful. Material wealth must be presented to the youth as a value subsidiary to the wealth of citizenship. Social capital must overcome financial capital.59 Moral crusade will raise capital trust-building and create an ethical environment, a system of mutual interdependency of restraint and watchdogs designed to check abuses of power by arms of government, and bureaucracies, agencies and the public. An ethical environment entails a system of “horizontal accountability that entails a ‘virtuous circle,’ in which each actor is both a watcher and is watched, is both a monitor and is monitored.”60 This ethical system fosters an ethical public life where honesty is cherished. Within this system, corruption is easily and boldly exposed by patriotic Ghanaians and punished without fear or favor.

Finally, there can be no good governance and successful anticorruption reforms without the activism and vigilance of the people. Since most political officials are beneficiaries of corruption the people must persistently demand good governance and anticorruption reforms. According to President Wilson, “Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it.”61 Successful anticorruption reforms do not depend on, but challenge, the decayed status quo.

Conclusion

Democracy is widely expected to restrain corruption. Yet in Ghana, despite being touted as a vibrant emerging democracy in Africa since 1993, the nation is blighted with cancerous corruption that has inflicted indelible ramifications on its development. Corruption is endemic in Ghana. The EIU rates Ghana as a “flawed democracy.” Despite many scholarly works on corruption in Ghana, there is limited work examining specifically the correlation between Ghana’s flawed democracy and its corruption. The paper fills this gap. The fundamental argument of the paper is that Ghana’s endemic corruptions is embedded in its flawed democracy that is fraught with illiberal practices incompatible with democratic ideals and sustain corruption. These include: deficient punishment; winner-take-all politics; monetized politics; dominant executive powers that create “institutional capture”; moral decadence and a “culture of ‘unethical materialism.’” The paper recommends good governance that encapsulates effective laws and agencies, administration and punishment as fundamental to fighting Ghana’s corruption. It further recommends ethical leadership with the political will to promote an ethical environment, demonetized politics, and inclusive politics. The vigilance and activism of the masses are salient to good governance and anticorruption reform success. Former Costa Rican president Oscar Arias Sanchez cautioned civil society and the poor of the Herculean task they face in the fight to rid society of corruption. He encourages civil society and the people to be tenacious, perseverant and determined despite the might of the opposition. He said, “we are in the majority and they are few. We must welcome the global tide of change. Somehow they (people) seem powerless ‘Davids’ fighting against the overwhelming ‘Goliaths.’ But, as have been shown recently in many countries, David’s spirit and will continue to triumph over Goliath’s intimidating might.”62

Notes

1. Larry Diamond, Juan J. Lunz, and Seymour M. Lipset, Politics in Developing Countries: Comparing Experiences with Democracy (Boulder, CO: Lienner, 1990), 1.

2. Yan Sun and Michael Johnston “Does Democracy Check Corruption?

Insights from China and India,” Comparative Politics 42, no. 1 (October 2009): 1.

3. Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) 2015 surveys shows the police, presidency, legislature and the bureaus to be highly corrupt.

4. Laza Kekic, “The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of Democracy,” The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2007, 2.

5. Fareed Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” Foreign Affairs 76, no. 6, 1997, 2.

6. Diamond et al, Politics in Developing World, 1.

7. Wayne Sandholtz and William Koetzle, “Accounting for Corruption: Economic Structure, Democracy, and Trade,” International Studies Quarterly 44, no. 1 (2000): 31–50.

8. Andres Scheller, Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, The Self Restraining State: Power and Accountability in Democracies (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999), 2.

9. Sandholtz and Koestzle, “Accounting for Corruption,” 31–50.

10. Sung, Hung-En, “Democracy and Political Corruption: A Cross-National Comparison,” Crime, Law and Social Change 41, 2004, 179–94.

11. Kekic, “Index of Democracy,” 3.

12. Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,”24.

13. Victor Levine, Political Corruption: The Ghana Case (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1975), 3.

14. Emmanuel Gyimah–Boadi, “Confronting Corruption in Ghana and Africa,” Ghana Center for Democratic Development Briefing Paper 4, no. 2, 2002, 4.

15. Alan Doig, David Watt and Robert Williams, “Measuring ‘Success’ in Five African Anti-Corruption Commissions—The Cases of Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia,” U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre Reports, 2005, 41.

16. Abdul‐Gafaru Abdulai, “Political Will in Combating Corruption in Developing and Transition Economies: A Comparative Study of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Ghana,” Institute for Democratic Governance, Journal of Financial Crime 16, no. 4, 2009, 387–417.

17. Fortune Agbele, “Political Economy Analysis of Corruption in Ghana,” European Research Centre for Anti-Corruption and State-Building Working Paper 28, 2011.

18. IEA, “Purging the Nation Of Corruption—Demanding Accountability From Public Institutions,” Conference on Corruption, 2015.

19. Abdul‐Gafaru, “Political Will,” 387.

20. Keba Sylla, “Defining Corruption in the Cultural Context of Sub-Saharan Africa” in eds. Gedeon M. Mudacumura and Göktuğ Morçöl’s Challenges to Democratic Governance in Developing Countries, (Gewerbestrasse, Switzerland: Springer Publishers, 2013), 171.

21. A Ghana Integrity Initiatives survey in 2005 (Voice of the People Survey, July 2005), shows that a total of 66.2 percent of the 900 respondents believed that consideration of party faithfulness was a requirement for awarding contracts by the government, and 54 percent felt contracts were awarded through the backdoor with total disregard to procurement regulations. Such behavior undermines fair competition and transparency. In addition, this 2005 Voice of the People Survey shows the pervasiveness of nepotism in Ghanaian society: 53.9 percent of the respondents believe that nepotism largely informs the awarding of contracts apart from tender. The report indicates that nepotism has eaten very deeply into the fabric of the Ghanaian society to the extent that it has become an acceptable norm.

22. Logong Raditlhokwa, “Corruption in Africa: A function of the crisis of leadership,” in eds Kwame Frimpong and Gloria Jacques’ Corruption, Democracy and Good Governance in Africa, (Gaborne, Botswana: Lightbooks Publishing, 1999), 49–55.

23. Robert Klitgaard “Gifts and Bribes” in ed. Richard Zeckhauser’s Strategy and Choice, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), 211.

24. Colin Leys, “What is the Problem About Corruption?” in eds. Arnold Heidenheimer and Michael Johnston, 3rd Edition (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001), 59.

25. Nurudeen Abu, Mohd Zaini Abd Karim, and Mukhriz Izraf Azman Aziz, “Corruption, Political Instability and Economic Development in the Economic Community of West African States: Is There a Causal Relationship?” Contemporary Economics, 9, no. 1, 2015, 45–60.

26. Gunnar Myrdal, Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1968), 7.

27. Christopher Thornley, Canadian High Commissioner to Ghana, “Corruption Impedes FDI -Canadian High Commissioner Expresses Worry,” Myjoyonline, 5 May 2016, Canadian High Commissioner to Ghana, “Corruption Impedes FDI-Canadian High Commissioner Expresses Worry,” Myjoyonline.

28. Vito Tanzi and Hamid Davoodi, Roads to Nowhere: How Corruption in Public Investment Hurts Growth (Washington: International Monetary Fund, 1998), 1.

29. Ronald Hope Kempe Sr., Corruption and Development in Africa: Lessons from Country Case-Studies, (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 1999), 20.

30. William Shelukindo and Ronald Baguma, “Ethical standards and behavior in African Public Services,” in eds. S. Rasheed and D. Olowu’s Ethics and Accountability in African Public Services (Nairobi: African Association for Public Administration and Management, 1993), 25–40.

31. Eric Chang, and Yun-han, Chu, “Corruption and Trust: Exceptionalism in Asian Democracies?,” Journal of Politics 68, no. 2, 2006, 259-327.

32. IEA, “Purging the Nation.”

33. Transparency International (TI), “Women Are Less Likely to Pay Bribes But Are More Disadvantaged in Corrupt Systems,” 7 March 2000, http://www.transparency.org/news/pressrelease/gender_and_corruption_are_women_less_corrupt.

34. You Jong-sung and Sanjeev Khagram, “Comparative Study of Inequality and Corruption,” American Sociological Review 70, 2005, 136–57.

35. Kwame Insaidoo, Ghana: An Incomplete Independence or a Dysfunctional Democracy? (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2012), 1.

36. Republic of Ghana, “Articles 70 and 144 Ghana Constitution,” Ghana Web, http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/republic/constitution.php?id=Gconst18.html.

37. Marie Chene, Marie, “Overview of Corruption and Anti-corruption in Ghana,’” TI, 10 January 2014.

38. IEA, “Purging the Nation.”

39. Ghana Web, “Anane Appears Before CHRAJ,” 17 January 2006.

40. “Mabey and Johnson: Sipa Yankey, Seidu Amadu Resign,” Joy Online, 10 August 2009, http://politics.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/200910/36251.php.

41. In the Woyome case the attorney general’s failures to appear in court during hearings before an appeals court was presumed to be due to official influence and unwillingness to prosecute Woyome who was one of their own. The attorney general was also revealed by Woyome to have benefitted from the dubious payment.

42. “Corruption Scandal, 34 Judges, Others, Caught on Camera Taking Bribes,” MyjoyOnline, 9 September 2015, http://www.myjoyonline.com/news/2015/September-9th/anas-investigation-cites-34-judges-others-in-massive-bribery -scandal.php.

43. Freedom House, 2010; The 2005 Voice of the People Survey shows the pervasiveness of nepotism in the Ghanaian society. In the survey, 53.9 percent of the respondents believe that nepotism largely informs the award of contracts apart from tender.

44. A Ghana Integrity Initiatives survey in 2005 (Voice of the People Survey, July 2005), shows that a total of 66.2 percent of the 900 respondents believed that consideration of party faithful was a means for awarding contracts by the government.

45. “Use Me While I’m in Office”—Segbefia Tells Voltarians,” Ghana News, 12 April 2015, http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Use-me-while-I-m-in-office-Segbefia-tells-Voltarians-354104.

46. “NDC Sets Up Committee to Create Jobs for Members,” 14 May 2015, http://www.accra24.com/2015/05/ndc -sets-up-committee-to-create-jobs.html.

47. Afrobarometer, Afrobarometer Survey 2014 Ghana, n.d., http://www.afrobarometer.org/countries/ghana-1.

48. Dr. Kwasi Aning, “Ghana’s Democracy is Not Intact,” GhanaWeb, 25 October 2012, http://www.ghanaweb.com /GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Ghana-s-democracy-is-not-intact-Kwasi-Aning-254291.

49. Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition, “Name and Shame Vote buying Parliamentary Aspirants-GACC Tells NPP, Ghana News, 16 June 2015, http://www.ghananews24.com/news/name-and-shame-votebuying-parliamentary-aspirants-gacc-tells-npp; Ghana Web, “Ablakwa Bought North Tongu NDC Parliamentary Primaries,” 25 December 2015, http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Ablakwa-bought-North-Tongu-NDC-primaries-403257.

50. Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi and Victor Brobbey, “Countries at the Crossroads: Ghana,” Freedom House, 20 September 2012, http://www.refworld.org/docid/505c1732c.html.

51. Heinz Jockers, Paul Nugent and Dirk Kohnert, “The Successful Ghana Election of 2008: A Convenient Myth?,” Journal of Modern African Studies 48, no. 1, 2010, 95–116.

52. Linda Akrasi, “‘All Die Be Die’ is to Inspire Party Agents —Nana Addo,” Ghanaian Chronicle, 29 April 2011, http://thechronicle.com.gh/category/news/page/1185/.

53. Jeremy Pope, Confronting Corruption: The Elements of a National Integrity System, TI, 2000, http://www.transparency.org.nz/docs/2000/Elements-of-a-National-Integrity-System.pdf, 2.

54. The World Bank, “World Bank Report on Africa,” accessed 18 April 2017, http://www.transparency.org.nz /docs/2000/Elements-of-a-National-Integrity-System.pdf.

55. United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, “What is Good Governance?,” accessed 18 April 2017, http://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/good-governance.pdf.

56. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address at Madison Square Garden, New York City,” 31 October 1936, published online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, accessed 18 April 2017, http://www.presidency .ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15219.

57. United States v Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Others, 1998, 1 LRC 614.

58. President Woodrow Wilson (speech, New York, 9 September 1912.

59. Oscar Aria Sanchez, president of Costa Rica (1986–90) in Jeremy Pope’s Confronting Corruption: The Elements of a National Integrity System, ix.

60. Pope, Confronting Corruption, 33.

61. President Wilson, speech.

62. Pope, Confronting Corruption, x.

*The author holds a doctorate in political science from Wayne State University. He is an associate professor of political science at Ohio Northern University. Dr. Nsia-Pepra’s research and teaching interests include good governance, corruption, accountability for crimes against humanity, civilian protection, conflict analysis and resolution, international security, terrorism, human rights, US-Africa relations, and United Nations (UN) robust peacekeeping and governance. He served with the UN Assisted Mission in Rwanda and with the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group during the Sierra Leonean War. Dr. Nsia-Pepra published, “UN Robust Peacekeeping: Civilian Protection in Violent Civil Wars,” “Truth and Justice Establishing an Appropriate Accountability Mechanism for Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes in Africa,” and “Militarization of U.S. Foreign Policy in Africa: Strategic Gain or Backlash?”

Air Mobility Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa

Maj Ryan McCaughan, USAF*

As the C-130E broke through the uncharacteristic cloud deck that hung above the Ethiopian air base in the city formerly known as Debre Zeyit, about 50 km outside of the capital city Addis Ababa, one must consider the events that brought it here. Less than six years ago, this aircraft belonged to the Puerto Rico Air National Guard. Since then it had been retired to the boneyard, selected for inclusion into the excess defense article (EDA) program, and granted to Ethiopia. What followed during the next two years can be characterized as bureaucratic malaise and long stretches of inactivity punctuated by brief periods of intense action followed by more than a year-long process of undergoing programmed depot maintenance at a cost of about $15 million to US taxpayers.

This will be the sole C-130E in the small, diverse fleet of the Ethiopian air force mobility aircraft. The aircraft and associated $24 million support package has been provided through strategic US government initiatives aimed at solving the air mobility challenge in sub-Saharan Africa. The manner air mobility is addressed in Ethiopia is consistent with how it is addressed throughout the continent and, at a cost of millions of dollars per year, has failed to solve the foundational problems of the lack of high-level maintenance options and too few aircraft. For that reason, there has been no appreciable capability growth across the region, despite the expenditure.

Since its inception in 2001, the African Union (AU) has been a forum through which the 54 member states could discuss and resolve significant issues which plague the continent. The AU charter is comprised of the general ideals, security, freedom, and peace, which can similarly be found in other international organizations, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union (EU), and the United Nations (UN). Unlike its Western contemporaries, however, the AU possesses a noteworthy capability shortfall that significantly constrains the potentially impactful organization’s ability to achieve desired results. Globally, air mobility’s role as a force multiplier has been proven, be it in Iraq while preceding military operations to build regional forces, or immediately following a natural disaster such as the 2011 earthquake in Japan, when aid personnel arrived on the ground within 24 hours of the beginning of the crisis.

Sub-Saharan Africa represents a glaring void where the capability is still not adequately reliable. While at strategic, coastal locations, such as Djibouti and Senegal, there is suitable infrastructure, they are strikingly insufficient across the approximately 45 nations that comprise sub-Saharan Africa.1 This simple truth is particularly problematic due to seemingly constant warfare, habitually poor governance, and natural disasters that demand a need for the capability, arguably more than any other place on earth. The perpetual need to rapidly deploy personnel and resources is vital to averting disasters in this part of the world on an almost annual basis, but despite continuous, expensive attempts, the challenge has not yet been sufficiently addressed.

The UN, NATO, and the United States government (USG), as well as others to some degree, have dedicated funds to the problem of sub-Saharan African air mobility for decades but without a coherent, coordinated effort. For the USG, the answer has evolved around support to the Legacy C-130E/H due to the multitude of aircraft on the continent and availability in the USG inventory. Exact fiscal data allocated to air mobility in this region from all sources is difficult to ascertain, but it certainly totals in the hundreds of millions of dollars in the past decade. Despite routinely celebrating successful military training engagements with regional partners, all this effort and money has yielded the C-130 operationally effective rate of about 30 percent.2 It is clear the status quo is not working, and neither international or USG money is resolving the fundamental challenges associated with air mobility in sub-Saharan Africa. The efforts of interested parties must be coordinated in a practical, deliberate manner to solve this problem while simultaneously emboldening the AU with the resources required to be a viable force for good on the continent.

The Problem

You will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics.

– Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower

When it becomes apparent that a response to an African crisis is necessary, the AU must engage in lengthy negotiations with capable regional partners and member states to obtain the use of air mobility resources. Even after obtaining initial lift support, the duration and risk of operations, as well as the priority placed on supporting the operation by the airlift provider, often changes. Vital supply lines become unreliable, and ground commanders are often placed in difficult situations absent food or ammunition. These negotiations must occur at the height of the emergency often causing a loss of the initiative by AU, UN, or friendly forces.3 Nearly two years after the start of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur the force was stagnated at 68 percent of required manning due to a lack of ability to resupply forward deployed troops.4 It should be self-evident that this has a direct correlation to the success of AU operations and many times their ability to defeat terrorist organizations that routinely threaten the United States and Western allies.

The first major peace support operation (PSO) conducted by the AU after its inception occurred in 2003. This mission was initiated to enforce a ceasefire between the Burundi government and rebel groups and was known as the African Mission in Burundi (AMIB).5 While ultimately AMIB was successful in deploying more than 3,000 peacekeepers and stabilizing about 95 percent of Burundi in order for the UN to assume responsibility, significant limitations were revealed.6 The AU, recognizing its inability to provide for logistics to support PSOs, turned that responsibility over to the individual nation who, in turn, frequently requested support from outside organizations, such as the US, UN, NATO, or EU. These organizations were critical to providing airlift and logistics support to AMIB.7 This model of logistics support, in other words, deferring the responsibility to the inflicted nation, became the AU standard operating procedure, and it persists in operations conducted to this day.

The second major AU PSO was the African Mission in Sudan (AMIS) in May 2005. This mission was charged with monitoring the ceasefire between north and south Sudan and to provide for security in Darfur. The AMIS was mandated to deploy 7,000 peacekeepers within one year and, out of necessity, relied exclusively on NATO for airlift support.8 This dependence on outsiders resulted in significant delays to troop rotations due to NATO and EU competition for limited air mobility resources. There are important health and welfare repercussions associated with delaying troop rotations as well as food and supply shortages that should not be ignored. A lack of focus on troop welfare naturally leads to misconduct as well as the associated remedial actions that detract from mission focus.9

A third major PSO is that of the AU Mission in Somalia established in 2007. This mission is designed to support the transitional federal government with security, humanitarian assistance, stabilization, and reconstruction efforts.10 While the AU mandate called for the deployment of 8,000 troops as an initial force, only 3,000 were sent due to insufficient transportation and sustainment capacity.11

The AU has failed to provide mandated troop levels in Burundi, Sudan, and Somalia, and the costs have been borne by the troops on the ground and the international partners who benefit from AU success. Peacekeepers must be provided with suitable, reliable logistics chains to achieve desired results. The AU has not been able to meet that basic demand absent substantial external support.12 In 2007, the AU established the goal of being capable of autonomously providing airlift to support regional objectives. Their vision includes the ability to conduct inter-, as well as intratheater airlift and to also conduct tactical rotary wing operations. Attached to the bold initiative is an exorbitant price tag to fund a variety of aircraft types.13 Thus far, the costs have proven too much, and any semblance of success has not manifested. Therefore, the AU recognizes this key shortfall and has dedicated a tremendous amount of time and resources in attempts to resolve it. The USG has done so similarly but has invested resources through bilateral means rather than through the multilateral organization charged with executing operations of interest to the USG.

The United States and Sub-Saharan Africa Air Mobility

During the last several decades, the USG has invested millions of dollars every year to support air mobility capability growth in sub-Saharan Africa. The USG has done this through various State Department and Department of Defense security cooperation and security assistance programs. This financial support has been directed to individual nations to bolster their C-130 maintenance capability.

Additionally, multiple excess defense C-130E/H aircraft have been donated to partner nations. As a cornerstone of air mobility support, the US employs military training teams (MTT) to impart knowledge of maintenance and aircrew operations related to these aircraft. Almost without exception, those MTT engagements return and are hailed as successful, which they largely are. The partner nation capability is certainly increased and much is learned. The success of these individual, tactical level engagements stand in contrast, however, to the overall operationally effective rate of C-130s in sub-Saharan Africa of between 20–30 percent.14 The tactical level gains achieved with individual nations collide with the strategic reality that:

(1) They do not have enough aircraft to allow one to go into depot maintenance, train effectively, and fly operationally at the same time and,

(2) They have no reasonable access to a high-level maintenance option. The existing support strategy is failing to achieve any appreciable capability growth with USG dollars and instead supports a continuous, inefficient cycle of disappointment that all but ensures a stymied development.

Expounding on the root causes of each of these shortcomings, maintenance and fleet size, reveals that they are inherently connected. In fact, one does not have to look farther than the mechanisms available to a poor nation to acquire more aircraft, particularly through US EDA programs. The USG, generally speaking and rightfully so, prefers a nation to be capable of supporting their aircraft mechanically before they are granted more. Additionally, the USG desires to see concrete, measurable results from those nations in alignment with USG interests. When a country does not possess enough aircraft to warrant such results, because they do not possess the maintenance capacity to operate a larger fleet, these results are difficult to achieve. Therefore, the USG will not want to provide EDA aircraft in what is an extremely competitive process. Absent a large enough fleet to warrant it, private enterprises capable of conducting high-level maintenance will not want to invest in a depot level facility on the continent, which is the only way maintenance practices will increase, and the only way the USG will be willing to provide more aircraft. Until regional, governmental partners with similar interests unite contractually with one another, as well as industry capable of conducting high-level maintenance, the cycle will not be broken, and air mobility in sub-Saharan Africa will remain elusive.

Figure 1. Low operations rate

One must be careful not to equate a specific platform with a capability. Practically, however, it seems evident that the United States has selected the Legacy C-130E/H as the aircraft of choice to support air mobility operations across the continent of Africa. This choice has been made either intentionally or by default and is evidenced by the more than 100 of the venerable workhorses which have been sold or donated to African partners via foreign military sales, direct commercial sales, or EDA programs. While about 60 of those are successfully operated by the more capable North African countries, more than 40 exist in sub-Saharan Africa, and it is among this fleet that the paltry operationally effective rate can be found.

The C-130 is the Answer

This analysis is based on the premise that the C-130 is, in fact, the “right” asset to achieve air mobility objectives in Africa. It is within the interest of the United States to promote the operation of the C-130 in Africa because of capability, availability, and partner nation growth potential. Few would disagree that, in terms of capability provided, the C-130 is right for Africa. Primarily in terms of cargo capacity, flight time, and unimproved surface landing capability, this asset provides the answer for a region so frequently plagued by war and famine enhanced by what has been dubbed the “tyranny of distance.” With a range of greater than 1,500 nautical miles, the capacity to carry up to 42,000 pounds of cargo, and ability to be reconfigured to adapt to a variety of mission sets, this is the perfect aircraft for a continent with limited staging locations and a lack of surveyed landing zones which may necessitate a range of 1,000 miles before refueling can occur.15

The same simplicity that is boasted by less-sophisticated platforms, limits range and cargo capacity, thereby ignoring major challenges that exist while operating in Africa. The C-130 is the only aircraft in the US inventory that is suitable for operations in Africa, yet still not cost prohibitive for fledgling air forces to operate, approximately $5-6 million annual maintenance and sustainment for a C-130H. Without question, the closest competitor to the C-130 in terms of maintaining low operating costs while providing the capability that Africa demands is the C-27. While certainly capable, this platform could not be relied upon to solve the air mobility shortfall in this region without an initial investment that few are interested in making. This choice would ignore the large quantity of C-130s already on the continent, outsource the ability to resupply spare parts to Italy, its manufacturer, and simply not satisfy the next pillar, availability.

The Legacy C-130 has delivered exceptional service to the United States for more than 50 years and is in the process of being replaced by the much more advanced and capable C-130J. This newest variant is an upgrade in almost every area of performance. The entire active duty fleet of Legacy C-130 aircraft has been retired or delivered to their Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard brethren. For this reason, it is safe to assume that within the upcoming years there will be an abundance of these still very capable aircraft available as EDA, specifically the C-130H. In fact, this outcome has already manifested itself with the recent delivery of several Legacy C-130s to the Philippines.16 Based on aircraft sales and industry projections, about 80 legacy C-130 aircraft will be retired from the US inventory in the next decade.17 This trend is likely to continue for decades as Reserve and Guard units begin to phase out the battle-tested Legacy Hercules.

As the C-130H divestiture continues, a historic opportunity is presented. At a comparatively low cost to the US taxpayer, a continent can be convinced that the C-130 should be the platform of the future. As the individual economies across Africa continue to develop, and militaries seek to enhance their own capability, they will undoubtedly seek to transition to the more advanced version of what they already know, the C-130J. This natural progression will lead to an entire new generation of economic gains for a major US defense company, Lockheed-Martin, resulting in American jobs. This vision will only be realized, however, if the United States and Lockheed-Martin believe that investment now will result in future opportunity. It is time to take the risk and execute a consolidated, focused venture across Africa in the areas of C-130 maintenance and training.

The Excess Defense Article Program

Efficient use of the EDA program would be an essential component of any coordinated effort to solve Africa’s air mobility challenge. The EDA program is designed so a nation assumes responsibility for an asset “as-is, where-is” and funds all moving, receiving, and repairing costs of the asset.18 With regards to an aircraft, these costs routinely reach into the tens of millions of dollars, normally due to required depot maintenance. When it is determined that an aircraft will no longer be used by the US Air Force (USAF), the fleet managers and maintenance commanders prudently make the determination that the aircraft will no longer receive scheduled maintenance beyond a given date. They do not want to allocate limited resources to an aircraft that will simply be deposited in the USAF boneyard without consideration or interest in alternate courses of action for that airframe. By the time it is determined that the aircraft will be offered via EDA, it is too late to schedule that neglected programmed depot maintenance (PDM). Therefore, the aircraft sits, uncovered, until it is acquired when it immediately has an associated price tag for PDM, an average of about $10 million for a C-130H. How this generally materializes in Africa, however, is that because the USG has a vested interested in a nation possessing an aircraft, and the associated capability it offers, the USG pays for the movement and “make-ready” costs of the asset and not the recipient nation. That cost is significantly higher than if the USG would have maintained the aircraft’s original PDM schedule.

It would behoove both the USG and recipient nations to closely scrutinize the EDA program to determine how these costs could be reduced. As part of a comprehensive, African C-130H EDA plan, assets should be identified one to two years in advance. Rather than maintenance simply being neglected, the AU, a recipient nation, or the USG can continue to fund that routine maintenance. Such an option for a recipient nation would allow them to stake their claim on an aircraft as well as to begin a security cooperation relationship with the investment of their own capital. For the USG’s part, continuing to fund the depot maintenance requirements of an aircraft would ultimately reduce those acquisition costs. If the aircraft is transferred to a nation that cannot afford to pay those costs, the USG will have saved money, considering it would pay those costs regardless. If the nation pays those PDM costs, the USG will have saved the recipient nation money. The premise is simply that these aircraft will go somewhere and as part of a comprehensive sub-Saharan Africa air mobility strategy, the EDA acquisition costs could be greatly reduced.

Industry Support

While the USG can overcome the challenge of limited aircraft to operate, train, and repair it will require support from private industry to increase the regional knowledge and capability to conduct high-level depot maintenance. Even in Western militaries this high-level maintenance work is conducted by contracted support facilities, operated by the aircraft manufacturer. Currently there is a noticeable absence of such facilities in Africa, despite the presence of more than 100 C-130s on the continent with about half in sub-Saharan Africa. While the aircraft have been present, the money to pay for maintenance has not been.

Figure 2. Global Locations of Lockheed Martin Certified C-130 Service Centers (Source: Lockheed Martin)

Industry support to C-130 maintenance operations will grow in proportion to the number of aircraft and investment of capital into the enterprise. The lure of more aircraft, a desire by the AU to select member states to receive aircraft that will be, at least partially, funded by the AU, and then the need of the AU to select one or more strategically located staging sites of those aircraft will inspire individual nations or industries to accept the risk associated with building a depot facility. The previously stated low operationally effective rate of C-130s in sub-Saharan Africa reveals a significant potential opportunity. Accompanied with the much lower cost of manpower across the region, the prospect for a tremendous amount of money to be made exists.

As a business entity, Lockheed Martin must certainly remain aware of the market-share of C-130s for existing depot facilities before creating new ones. The USG can incentivize Lockheed-Martin to support by committing to providing more C-130s, increasing the market, contingent upon the facility development. The potential customers for the new depot facility would be newly received aircraft and those which have previously not undergone depot maintenance at all, thereby, enabling existing depot facilities to sustain their current business tempo. Finally, it should be noted that manpower costs in most sub-Saharan African nations are significantly lower than those in Europe or the United States, which should lower the overall depot maintenance cost making it more achievable for lower income African nations. As has been the case in other regions of the world, industry will ultimately be necessary to solving this air mobility challenge.

NATO’s Strategic Airlift Capability

It is an important point that a regional solution to an air mobility challenge and an international organization leading such an enterprise is not unheard of. The Heavy Airlift Wing (HAW) was established in 2008 in Pápa, Hungary by ten NATO countries plus two others to “acquire, manage, support, and operate three Boeing C-17 strategic transport aircraft.” This multinational organization operates as a subagency within NATO and, obviously, not all NATO members are HAW members. Membership does, however, remain open should others become interested. The three C-17s are registered and flagged under the host nation of Hungary, but are owned by the 12 Strategic Air Command (SAC) member nations, each owning a portion of the available flight hours. The aircraft are available for use by those nations without preconditions to serve the specific needs of their own national defense, NATO, EU, or UN efforts. They are maintained by civilians through a foreign military sales contractual agreement with Boeing.19 Currently the organization is commanded by a USAF colonel and is comprised of about 145 multinational maintenance and aircrew personnel derived from its member-states.

The success of the HAW and the overall strategic initiative has been extraordinary at multiple levels. First, operationally, less than a year after receiving their first C-17, SAC flew three separate missions into Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. They delivered humanitarian aid, as well as personnel to the devastated island nation.20 Additionally, SAC has supported the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan consistently from 2009–2014. Furthermore, this organization is frequently involved in supporting UN operations across Africa, as was the case in 2013 with the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali and the UN Mission in the Republic of Central Africa in 2015.21

While the operational success of SAC is well-documented, the organization’s existence also boasts second and third-order effects. The integration of Boeing into the community of Pápa, offers an opportunity for job creation and economic prosperity to the citizens in that area. The relationship of Boeing is such that the C-17 fleet is provided with on-site maintenance, engineering, and spare parts. Such an integrated role in the community has allowed Boeing to offer scholarships and internships to continue to grow the regional expertise in this field.22 If emboldened in one or more nations in sub-Saharan Africa, the economic impact of this new industry and contact with a proven, Western company could produce a generation of economic prosperity.

Conclusion

Status quo support to sub-Saharan African air mobility has proven insufficient and expensive. The USG has not realized the results it needs to justify the continued support of individual, bilateral programs without solving the enduring institutional challenges of fleet size and high-level maintenance. Every new crisis in Africa is met with the same daunting task of logistics and air mobility and, frequently, the AU limitations with regards to air mobility becomes the challenge for the USG and Western partners to either solve or accept defeat on issues of national importance, in other words, terrorism, disaster relief, pandemics, and so forth. The carrot and stick mechanisms exist today for the United States to motivate all actors towards a real solution to this problem.

The USG must view air mobility as a resource of a region, however, and not of a single nation. A comprehensive plan in association with and led by the AU must and can be inspired to action by the unprecedented availability of C-130H aircraft. Capable industry partners must be engaged by the AU and USG to motivate them to grow their depot facilities in Africa, encouraged by the more than 40 current C-130s and promise of more operating there. The AU must determine cost sharing mechanisms with individual member states to share the burden of maintenance and operations of these aircraft. Individual nations can be motivated by the prestige and access to aircraft that will be theirs should they be selected to stage the aircraft and operate the depot facility. The US is in a position to stimulate an initiative to solve the decades-old problem, but must first adapt existing programs to the strategic realities of providing support to Africa.

Following the characteristic brake squeal of a perfect aircraft touchdown, the Ethiopian C-130E, Tail No. 1564 taxied to park in front of the entourage of US and Ethiopian commanders present for the occasion. The onlookers watched as the front-top hatch opened and, after a brief pause, the Ethiopian lead navigator emerged wearing his US provided, light-green Dave Clark headset and brandishing the Ethiopian flag. The sense of national pride that swelled through the crowd was tangible, and it hung in the air as the lower-ranking maintainers and aircrew present on the fringes of the small crowd began to cheer. The general’s chests swelled with pride at the sight. It is clear that our African partners are desperate to provide for their own defense just as partners throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

As the powerful, turbo-prop engines spin to a stop, and the crew entrance door swings open, no one can know how much longer the United States will be involved in supporting this aircraft, or how long Ethiopia will be able to maintain it without reasonable access to a depot facility. Even if they had that access, it is unlikely that they could take it “off the line” long enough to allow it to go. NATO was able to overcome intense challenges to solve their regional airlift issues with the creation of the HAW. Ultimately, the African solution will be as different as the nations which comprise the two international organizations. The United States, now more than ever, possesses the ability to motivate action to solve this problem with the retirement of the Legacy C-130. No single person or organization possesses all the answers or abilities to finally develop a solution, but there are certainly several specific actions that the USG can take to align the conversation of all interested parties and change the status quo.

Recommendations

The USG should agree to provide three or more C-130H aircraft to a framework nation in sub-Saharan Africa that is willing to use national funds to create a Lockheed Martin Certified Depot Facility. The framework nation must commit to funding the “make-flight-ready” PDM costs associated with acquiring EDA C-130 aircraft and conducting that maintenance in their new PDM facility. At the national level, they should be motivated to do so because their national funds will remain in-country, albeit their air force will likely be paying their industry. Additionally, the regional economic growth and academic programs that would follow the introduction of Lockheed Martin should incentivize this framework nation.

The USG should engage with Lockheed Martin to arrange an agreement that US-provided aircraft will utilize the new PDM service center, thereby reducing risk and increasing the market. This action will entice Lockheed Martin to actually support. Additionally, Lockheed Martin may be incentivized by the notion of Africa eventually transitioning to the J-Model C-130 as their national economies develop. Lockheed Martin must determine with which nation and industry they would like to engage. There are multiple reasonable options throughout the continent, like major airlines or capable militaries that already conduct depot maintenance on other platforms.

The AU must develop an innovative funding model to financially support at least a portion of the operational and maintenance costs of the aircraft, thereby purchasing access to the iron when needed. A direct funding model could be used, but also a flight-hour sharing construct should be negotiated between the framework nation, AU, and other capable partners in Africa. Other capable partners should be given the opportunity to assign aircrew and maintenance personnel to the framework nation and to interfly on these aircraft and train alongside their fellow Africans. This would begin to align doctrine and training practices.

AU and the USG should determine strategic locations where they would like aircraft staged in Africa to ensure continental coverage. The USG should negotiate support for training and facility development at those strategic locations to ensure access for American aircraft. This would increase US reach throughout Africa increasing global reach in a difficult region. The USG should develop a model to actually conduct security cooperation activities through the AU. On a case-by-case basis, a transition must be made from bilateral security cooperation to regional or multilateral activities for regional capabilities, like air mobility or intelligence sharing, for example.

The EDA program should be closely scrutinized to identify efficiencies which would greatly reduce the cost for recipient nations as well as the United States.

Notes

1. Air Mobility Command, “Air Mobility Command White Paper on Global En Route Strategy,” Air University, Air War College, 14 July 2010, http://www.latinreporters.com/colombieBasesWhitePaperAirMobilityCommand.htm.

2. David Johnson (Lockheed Martin, International Business Development), David, interview by Ryan McCaughan with the author, 25 October 2016, Lockheed Martin, International Business Development (10 25, 2016).

3. Birame Diop, David Peyton, and Gene McConville, “Building Africa’s Airlift Capacity: A Strategy for Enhancing Military Effectiveness,” in Africa Security Brief: A Publication of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, no. 22 (2012): 1–8.

4. United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General on the Deployment of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur,” 13 July 2009, http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S /2009/352.

5. Festus Agoagye, “The African Mission in Burundi: Lessons Learned from the First African Union Peacekeeping Operation,” Relief Web, 26 August 2004, http://reliefweb.int/report/burundi/african-mission-burundi-lessons-learned -first-african-union-peacekeeping-operation.

6. Ibid.

7. Jeffrey N. Krulick, “Airlift in Africa: Building Operational Logistics Capability for the African Standby Force,” Army Sustainment, January–February 2013, 10–18.

8. Ibid.

9. Catherine Guicherd, The AU in Sudan: Lessons for the African Standby Force (New York: International Peace Academy, 2007), 17.

10. African Union Mission in Somalia, AMISOM Mandate, accessed 8 January 2017, http://amisom-au.org/amisom-mandate/.

11. Krulick, “Airlift in Africa,” 13.

12. Paul Williams, “Lessons Learned from Peace Operations in Africa,” Africa Security Brief: A Publication of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, no. 3 (2010): 1–8.

13. Birame Diop, David Peyton, and Gene McConville, “Building Africa’s Airlift Capacity: A Strategy for Enhancing Military Effectiveness,” Africa Security Brief: A Publication of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, no. 22 (2012): 1–8.

14. SAF/IASecretary of the Air Force International Affairs, “Current African C-130 Operators,” in discussion with the author, December 2013.

15. USAF, C-130 Hercules, May 2014, http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/224/Article/104517 /c-130-hercules.aspx.

16. Defense Industry Daily, C-130s for the Philippines, 8 March 2016, http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com /c-130s-for-the-philippines-025976/.

17. Johnson, David, interview.

18. DSCA, Excess Defense Articles, n.d., accessed 16 January 2017, http://www.dsca.mil/programs/excess-defense.

19. Strategic Airlift Capability Program, n.d., accessed 16 January 2017, https://www.sacprogram.org/en/Pages/The%20Strategic%20Airlift%20Capability.aspx.

20. Juha Miettinen, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 2 February 2010, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq /news_61165.htm?selectedLocale=en.

21. Strategic Airlift Capability Program, n.d.

22. Strategic Airlift Command, “Boeing’s Internship Program Offers Hungarian Engineering Students an Opportunity to Work with the Strategic Airlift Capability C-17As,” Strategic Airlift Capability, 8 August 2016, https://www .sacprogram.org/en/Pages/Boeings-Internship-Program-Offers-Hungarian-Engineering-Students-an-Opportunity-to -Work-with-the-SAC-C-17As.aspx.

*The author is deputy chief of the Office of Security Cooperation in the US Embassy, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Previous assignments include assistant director of operations for the 50th Airlift Squadron at Little Rock AFB, Arkansas, and as a combat aviation advisor with the 6th Special Operations Squadron, Hurlburt Field, Florida. He has deployed in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom, New Dawn, Enduring Freedom and Unified Response, accruing more than 190 C-130 combat missions and almost 985 combat flight hours while performing various aeromedical evacuation, distinguished visitor support, airdrop, humanitarian and other forms of airlift operations. Additionally, he aided the Polish air force in establishing their robust Legacy C-130 program. A senior C-130 navigator with more than 2,000 flight hours in the C-130 Models E, H1, H2, and H3, Major McCaughan is a graduate of Squadron Officer School and Air Command and Staff College via correspondence

Table of Contents

00Contents-E

01Editorial-E

02Mikail-E

03Ellis-E

04Conway-E

05Andresen-E

06Nsia-Pepra-E

07McCaughan-E