Liberation, not Conquest

Yesterday, the French and British forces broadened the campaign in Libya by striking not only at military targets, or even the Command and Control targets that it had targeted before, but at Infrastructure targets throughout Libya. This came at the same time as Liam Fox declared that Britain was prepared to continue the military action until the removal of Gaddafi, even if that conclusion was still months away.

Liam Fox interestingly mentioned that not only the UK, but the entire international coalition was prepared to pursue this course of action. This of course goes against the trend with NATO members. The US, at least officially, has been stepping down its military contribution for the last two months. One of the few minor partners, Norway, has stated that it would be removing its jets from the air campaign.

These trilateral strikes (Italy have been the only other commitment to increase, rather than decrease their commitment), have struck deep at the heart of Libyan Infrastructure, both economic and governmental. Yesterday, explosions were heard at oil facilities across the East of Libya. Today, two government departments were hit, both the departments of security services, and of anti corruption.

These attacks are at best, misguided. Whilst they will may seem to make a contribution to the rebel cause, even that goal will probably not be achieved. For instance, Libya under Gaddafi has not sold oil on the international market since the start of the conflict. He has, according to most sources, easily enough stored bullion and resources to last even the most protracted war. Instead, it will only serve to denigrate the country to the country if the rebels do inherit it. What is the point of fighting a battle for freedom and democracy, if you only then have the freedom to starve in poverty?

The strikes on government buildings are only a little better thought out. While the benefits are bigger – one is a security building, and as such, probably involved in repression, the losses still outweigh it. Such strikes, far away from the UN mandate, threaten the perceptions and support of NATO's contribution, both in Eastern Libya and abroad.

NATO cannot afford to look like a colonial aggressor. While any direct action in the conflict contravenes the will of the UN, it can get away with it, if it appears that it is the liberator. Any action that threatens the people of Libya themselves only serves to drive them towards Gaddafi and prolong the war. They also serve to drive other countries away from helping in the Arab Spring. This is only compounded by the travesty of French and British forces recently let hundreds of refugees drown to death. Are these the actions of a Liberator or a Conqueror?

With the continuing military intervention in Libya, it has long become clear that the actions of the coalition are not only instigating and maintaining a no fly zone, but directly aiding the Transitional National Council. While this wasn’t the intention of the original UN resolution – Russia would have vetoed such an explicit interference in internal affairs, even if UN security rules allowed it – it was certainly so broadly worded that almost any action could be allowed. So it is legal, but is it the right thing to do?

There’s certainly precedent to such an action. The Kosovo war would be the most obvious example. After several horrible massacres of ethnic Albanians by Yugoslav forces, crimes which later came to trial at the Hague, NATO intervened. They provided both strategic bombing and close air support for the KLA, as well as supplying them with intelligence and arms. The NATO campaign lasted 2 months and eventually caused the president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, to offer peace.

The campaign certainly helped prevent further massacres by the Yugoslav army, and eventually resulted in Kosovo becoming an autonomous state in Yugoslavia. But the NATO bombing campaign resulted in the deaths of up to 1500 civilians as well as the destruction of massive swathes of the Yugoslav economy. Several members of the KLA were later indicted by the ICC, with their leader Ramush Haradinaj currently facing a retrial for war crimes, after his first trial was marred with witness intimidation.

It may well be too much to expect that the opposition in Libya would be paragons of virtue, but already they have shown a dark side. There have been reports, which have been confirmed by both rebel figures and independent journalists, that many suspected Gaddafi supporters have been summarily executed by the rebels. Whilst you could argue that in the situation it may be justified, these people have not been afforded a trial. Instead, they have been executed purely on an accusation of a political belief – the very crime for which they rightly rally against Gaddafi.

Even if these fears, which have not been helped by reports of atrocities against sub-Saharan Africans, are unfounded, there is still a major problem to be addressed. The Council currently seems completely incapable of overthrowing Gaddafi, a man who is universally despised and is being bombed by the best that the West has to offer. How will they maintain control after they have been installed in power?

In democracies, stability comes directly from the civil society. The groups that people form in order to further a common goal, such as trade unions, are the very foundations that support democracy. Gaddafi has followed the dictator handbook in ensuring that all possible groups are banned, declaring that all such groups are unnecessary under his people’s committees.

If a democracy is imposed without it, it can lead one of two ways. With direct foreign backing, it can lead to the situation we see in Iraq. Lacking groups of mutual interest, parties and factions instead form around religious or ethnic commonalities, leading to violence and eventually war or a power vacuum. Without it, the government is forced to impose itself to maintain unity and prevent violence. This leads to a growth in the security forces and eventually, a dictatorship, as in most of post-colonial Africa.

We should stop picking sides and enforce the neutral no-fly zone. We must bring together both parties, as well as other well-respected and well-qualified Libyans, to the table, leading to a referendum and a smooth transition to democracy. If we continue this intervention, we will prevent the people of Libya from forming the stable democracy they want and need. The people of Libya have the power to choose their own destiny. They must be allowed to.

Fukushima's Fallout

Recently, the media has come alive with disaster coverage. The focus has been split three ways: the Arab Spring, in particular the recent intervention in Libya; the Japanese earthquake and the resulting tsunami; and the situation that has developed in, and around, the Fukushima power plant.

Whilst these are all terrible events, they are not of the same scale. The first two are true catastrophes, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people, displacing hundreds of thousands more and fundamentally changing the lives of all the people in the affected areas. The third, Fukushima, has resulted only in injuries to the brave engineers and firemen who have been working to contain the accident.

However, the reaction to the situation has been massive. Apart from the overblown media coverage, all members of the international community have announced changes to their nuclear programs. Germany, for example, has shut down many of its reactors. The US and China have both announced indefinite delays to the construction of new plants.

So are the concerns and the coverage justified? I certainly don’t think anyone would claim that nuclear power is completely safe. It is a certainty that accidents can, and will, happen. In the 50 or so years that we have been using nuclear power, there have been three major accidents: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. All three of these captured the public attention at the time, causing huge evacuations and mass panic. However, we now know that the damage was not as bad as the initial reaction might have suggested. Neither Three Mile Island nor Fukushima caused a single death, and a recent UN study into Chernobyl stated that it caused at most a thousand, that figure including lives cut tragically short due to cancer.

The alternatives, by contrast, are devastating. Coal power, which is the most like for like replacement, kills over a million people a year globally. That means that for every 8 hours it runs as designed, it kills as many people as Chernobyl. The biggest power disaster was not due to nuclear, but instead the breaching of the Banqiao dam. That single event took the lives of over 200,000 people – a massive 200 Chernobyls.

You might then suggest that the best way to compare different power systems would be to look at the number of deaths by power generated. After all, coal power plants are much more widely used than nuclear ones. Indeed, such a study has been done, and the results are extremely interesting. Coal is far and away the worst, although if we only take into account clean coal, we get a minimum of 15 deaths per TWH generated. Oil is similar. Natural gas is much safer, with only 4 deaths per TWH. Then there are the renewables, ranging from hydro power, which causes about 1.5, down to wind at 0.15. Nuclear is the safest with only 0.04.

Fukushima has certainly highlighted a problem with nuclear power, one that persists throughout the Western world. Our nuclear reactors are old. Not just a little bit either; here in the UK every single commercial reactor was built in the 1950s and 60s. Their would-be replacements are cheaper, they can use existing nuclear waste as their fuel and they’re safer still than the existing ones.

We have to make the right decision now if we want to secure our energy future. Nuclear will never be the miracle cure that was promised in the 1950s, but we need something to tackle the energy crisis and climate change now. The alternatives, Gas, Oil and Coal, are dangerous and running out. We must scrap the existing power plants and begin building newer, safer ones. You can even build one in my backyard.

The New Realpolitik

This is something I wrote a couple of weeks ago, before the military intervention:

As the situation in Libya deteriorates, the rest of the world has an ethical obligation to ensure the long-term safety of the country’s many citizens. In the last two weeks there has been a hope; perhaps even an expectation, that Muammar Gaddafi would stand aside of his own accord, as happened with Mubarak and Ben Ali. However, from his recent actions, it’s become clear that he possesses no such intention.

The response of the rest of the world has more or less followed the history books. Western Europe has followed its usual stance – a hard line with the government. They have piled on the sanctions, as well as prompting an investigation into the human rights abuses to Gaddafi. They have even talked briefly about military action.

Russia and China have taken a slightly different tact, taking the position that there should be no interference in domestic affairs. Again, this is the expected approach – both need to avoid antagonising the Western governments they depend upon for trade, but neither can they afford to legitimise military involvement - they are hardly innocent of human rights abuses themselves.

The US is the only power to do something a little different – although I suspect through no innovation of their own. Robert Gates speeches, playing closely to Obama’s line, have tried to maintain the focus on diplomatic action. The focus of the department of defence has been to take the focus away from aggressive force - Obama clearly wants to avoid another Afghanistan before the upcoming election.

Hilary Clinton clearly missed the meeting for that one though. She’s continuing to push herself forward as the hawk of the administration and the Democrat party, obviously hoping to use it to her advantage in next year’s primaries. She has directly contradicted Robert Gates on several occasions, suggesting even that military action could be imminent.

Wherever the US positions itself, there is a reasonable consensus in the international community. To protect both the Libyan people, and the ideals of international justice, Gaddafi must be strong armed, first diplomatically and then, if necessary, militarily. This approach raises a serious issue though. What do we really expect him to do if not wage war? We have shown him only two paths – Civil war, with the spectre of victory on the horizon, or surrender, with a criminal trial and iron bars in the foreground.

We must propose an alternative. As unpalatable as it may seem, a package must be brought to the table that allows Gaddafi to save both himself and his people. Chavez, a man who can hardly be called a saint himself, has taken the first step today in offering to mediate a discussion. From there, Gaddafi can be offered a swift, peaceful handover, followed by an amnesty and exile.

This is the realpolitik of the 21st century. No longer should we be propping up strongmen and tyrants for our own gain – but we must be willing to sacrifice individual cases of justice for the liberty and security of a nation. And for those who band the drum of war, remember this. Whilst we’re offering the carrot, we can still carry the big stick.