Peace Operations

Comment on “The Unforgivable Silence on Sudan”

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On the picture: Taken by the author in a refugee camp in Darfur, June 2005

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield is the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Today, March 18, 2024, the New York Times published a Guest Essay by her, titled “The Unforgivable Silence on Sudan“.

I render the platform of my small blog for sharing her powerful message.

She starts her essay with her impressions on occasion of her visit to a makeshift hospital  in Adré, Chad. Chad is neighboring the Sudan. There she met young Sudanese refugees who were being treated for acute malnutrition. When she was in that hospital, all she heard was “an eerie silence”. The silence of human beings who are even too weak to utter sounds, who are too weak to cry.

In some recent blog entries on the situation of civilians in Ukraine’s war zone and of civilians suffering on both sides after the terror attack of Hamas’ against Israel and Israel’s military response fighting the terror organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip, I wondered how many news about terrible suffering of human beings can be taken in even by the most compassionate human beings. Reflecting on my perception of global news, I wondered about the underwhelming reporting on the re-occurrence of one of the most severe human tragedies of the past two decades, in Sudan’s Darfur Region.

Having been there on many occasions between 2005 and 2016, I remembered the public outrage and the humanitarian calls, including by celebrities who, from early on, helped broadcasting a message of compassion which supported a massive humanitarian intervention, and one of the largest peacekeeping operations of contemporary times to follow. Certainly, the human tragedy in Darfur left an imprint on public conscience in the West at that time. And of course, as is always the case, the public attention moved on, whilst the humanitarian and peacekeeping efforts were in for the long haul. AMIS, the African Union Mission, and UNAMID, the succeeding hybrid mission jointly led by African Union and United Nations, formed an intense part of my work both in the European Union and in the United Nations over almost fifteen years.

When the United Nations Security Council, pressed by some of it’s members, decided to wind down the peacekeeping efforts at the end of 2020, those news were not making big headlines. Outside of the community of humanitarians and practitioners in the field of international peace and security, not many people noted it.

Enter the situation just three years after, and with a brutal civil war re-ocurring in Sudan. To quote Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield reporting about her experience with the sound of silence:

“Twenty years earlier I had visited the same town and met with Sudanese refugees who fled violence in Darfur, where the janjaweed militia, with backing from Omar al-Bashir’s brutal authoritarian regime, carried out a genocidal campaign of mass killing, rape and pillage.

Today, civil war has once again turned Sudan into a living hell. But even after aid groups designated the country’s humanitarian crisis to be among the world’s worst, little attention or help has gone to the Sudanese people.”

On previous occasions I reflected on an impression that an increasing number of people appears to feel overwhelmed by the battlerhythm of horrific news. For about the last two hours, I tried to walk in the shoes of friends in Africa, or the Middle East, who very understandably perceive policymaking in the West as biased. Because, quite frankly, it is. Not only “others” are biased. We all are. But in this antagonistic struggle between systems there are real loosers. People in areas like Sudan’s Darfur Region are at the receiving end.

People like in Darfur certainly feel forgotten in their suffering. When some of them, together with others from poverty-stricken and terror-riddled areas of Africa manage to end up in human trafficking networks at the Mediterranean shores of North Africa, when they perish on their perilous journey to European shores, the reports about their fate have become a regular part in the battle-rhythm of incessant bad news to which many of us, perhaps, listen less and less. When people manage to reach European shores, whether they escape from famine, or have reasons of economic migration, they may arrive as unwelcome strangers, to put it mildly.

A former President of the United States is using an increasingly bellicose rethoric of de-humanization and labeling any migrant at the Southern U.S. border either as criminal, or being let loose from mental health institutions, or being a terrorist. Which, is, looking at some language and sentiments harbored in Europe, perhaps only some of the most extreme expression of hostility which seems to become the new normal. We have it everywhere. If we can’t prevent it from spreading, that is.

Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield’s Guest Essay is pointing towards the culmination of what she calls “Unforgivable Silence”:

“For almost a year, I have been pushing the United Nations Security Council to speak out. On March 8, the Council finally called for an immediate cessation of hostilities. This is a positive step, but it is not nearly enough — and it does not change the fact that the international community and media outlets have been largely quiet.

The world’s silence and inaction need to end, and end now.“

A Long Summer – Creativity Refill

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I took a long break from writing. I don’t write when I have doubts whether I have someting meaningful to say. So I spent a summer with introspection. Just sitting with my unease. Yesterday I felt the creative energy coming back for the first time. At the end of two weeks with my children here in Toronto I enjoy a second cup of coffee, the house still silent, this part of the World experiencing the beginning of a Saturday morning, my friends in Europe already moving into the afternoon, and I am opening the WordPress editor for the first time since months.

What happened leading to the end of my incommunicado? At the surface of it, it were two articles I read.

One relates to August 19, 2003, when the United Nations office in Baghdad was targeted in a suicide attack. Today, August 19, 2023, marks this day for the twentieth time. Sergio Viera de Mello, the Special Representative of the United Nations’ Secretary General, and 21 other people died in that attack. I belong to those who can’t forget this day, like many dear friends, in the United Nations, and beyond. I won’t forget Luis da Costa, personally. Many of my colleagues who serve or served in th UN have somebody dear to them whom they lost that day. The BBC article “How a suicide bomb attack changed the lives of UN aid workers” by Imogen Foulkes memorizes this horrible attack and reflects on how the attack changed the way the United Nations system is working, until today.

At the time of the attack I was working for the United Nations in my office in Pristina, Kosovo. I was the Police Commissioner of the United Nations Interim Mission in Kosovo by then. When this mission, dubbed UNMIK, was established in 1999, Kosovo was a place of severe post-war violence for several years to come. Like thousands of other UN staffers, we police officers would rent apartments for living amongst the population, and going to work using soft-skin vehicles and working from regular offices. May be fenced, may be some very normal security around, but we would literally live and work within the population, for the population. We would take risks of being attacked, I still have many pictures in my archive. But countries like mine, Germany, would be willing to send their police officers into an environment where we could find ourselves waking up to the aftermath of a bomb explosion nearby. In one of those many cases, a German police officer literally woke up one morning to discover two new holes in his living room: A rocket propelled grenade had punched an entry hole and an exit hole into his rental apartment. At no point I heard any serious request from Police Contributing Countries to withdraw police officers from the deployment into this mission. We stayed, like we did the same in previous missions, in Bosnia & Hercegovina, or elsewhere.

Later, in my time with Headquarters of the European Union or the United Nations, I would travel to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Sudan/Darfur, to South Sudan, to Mali, the Central African Republic, to Somalia. In those places, I would meet police officers in so-called “Super Camps” or other protected compounds. I would move around with them in armored vehicles. My memories of travels outside of Baghdad’s Green Zone or outside the protected areas of Kabul include heaviest military protection. Yes, there still were the established Missions in which UN staff would live under more normal circumstances, such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or in Haiti, or Timor Leste, or Liberia, or Ivory Coast. But the world of the United Nations changed way more than only in relation to security. The BBC article says “In 2022 there were 235 attacks on aid workers, according to the Aid Worker Security Database, and 116 were killed.” Add the casualties amongst United Nations peacekeepers, I believe they are not even accounted for in this. Places like Mali and others have caused a human toll on United Nations staff that would have been unimaginable twenty years ago.

Like community policing, peacekeeping of the United Nations is about communication. It is about being temporarily rooted in a host population, in order to promote peace, to contribute to peace, and to develop the means of a host State in order to guarantee peace and security again. How do you do that through the thick protective glass shields of a heavy armored vehicle? I saw a convoy of armed UN vehicles moving slowly through a refugee camp in Darfur, stopping at the center, UN police officers getting out, protected by other officers with guns, sitting down with camp elders, then moving back into that convoy of armored turtles. Every day, once or twice. Walk in the shoes of those elders, think about how they may feel.

And like in the microcosm of daily operations, the inability to communicate achieving joint goals is also reflected within the United Nations Security Council. The erosion of jointness, whatever there was before, on the side of the five permament members of the Security Council has reached unprecedented levels. Those inside the system saw this storm coming for many years, if not decades. A toothless political instrument designed to be ultimatly the arbiter of peace and security on a global level is the product of countless defeats within that round chamber to achieve common positions which meaningfully legitimate the field work of the UN. As a consequence, not only behemoths like the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo suffer. Recently, the drawdown of one of the biggest UN Missions, in Mali, has begun. It just is the most recent case in a long line of withdrawals, some successful, some not. The most recent developments in Sudan’s Darfur area remind me of exactly what happened twenty years ago and led to the establishment of the African Union’s AMIS, and then UNAMID as it’s UN-successor. History moving in cycles? No progress, because a temporary halt of violence and decay is not exactly what we would name “sustainable” peace? One of the reasons why I fell silent, for some months. Watching the ever growing influence and presence of Wagner mercenaries, left and right of UN peacekeeping in the Sahel, and filling the void even more after Russian propaganda has successfully contributed to hollowing out democracies in Africa, to the advantage of autocratic leaders, power-hungry Generals and corrupt local elites. As a side-note, I see the defensive posture taken by Baltic States bordering Belarus, since parts of Wagner were stationed there in the aftermath of this most notable One-Day-Putsch attempt of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Like terrorism aims at disrupting communication and sowing fear, establishing own versons of a so-called “truth”, the same is true for political processes of antagonisation, being the product of nationalism, being the product of reckless selfishness playing with the natural fear of human beings, establishing falsehoods, repeating lies as long as necessary so to become the “truth” for many. All of the above falls in line with a longer and larger development leading us to where we are, today. How do I explain this to my youngest children? By not stopping to tell stories, in order to establish memory, and context. It is not about attempting to revive the past, but to have meaningful informed context for how to operate in the Here and Now. I did this over the past two weeks here in Canada with my kids. Obviously, it gives me the energy for telling stories in my blog, again. It is not about getting my memories “out there”, again and again. It is about contributing to establishing context for those who will be at the helm of decision making nowadays, or soon. People like my children. Every parent shares that responsibility.

Not having contextual knowledge is one thing. Denial is the other. Which brings me to the other article, the second one.

“How European Officials View a Possible Second Trump Term” is the second article. I read it in the New York Times this morning, August 19.

When I arrived in Toronto two weeks ago, catching up with my ex-wife casually, I was about to ask her how Canadians are looking at the series of ever expanding criminal indictments of Nr 45. I was stopped with a smile, but cold in my tracks: “If it is about Trump, I don’t want to hear it.”

When I travel in Europe, whether in South-East Europe, or in my country, Germany, discussions of the current state of affairs in the United States appear to be very detached from what I can see when focusing on U.S. domestic press and media. Sometimes it feels like the 45th U.S. Presidency has become an afterthought in Europe. Media reporting in European outlets which I follow are way different to the hype on CNN, MSNBC, and other media. Yes, I read liberal news, more or less sympathetic to the Democrat’s cause. I don’t make myself suffering from watching Fox News, or hate-mongering media outlets. My daily list of suggested videos on Youtube is reflecting that preference, too. I don’t want to have my list of suggestions become convoluted with hate, fear, anger, and lies.

Yes, there is a point in not to over indulge. Much of the American hype also leads to stoking emotions which keep me coming back to yet another piece of sensational news. But this is only one part of the story. The other part is, that as a concerned person informing myself through reading more of this stuff than, say, the average person, I get genuinely scared.

The NYT article talks about the subdued expression of grave concern amongst politicians and policymakers in Europe. Grave concern about the real possibility of a second term of office for Donald Trump. What it would mean, for the U.S., Europe, the support for the Ukraine in their fighting a war against a Russian aggressor, for relations between Super Powers including China and (still?) the U.S., for the European Union, other regional organisations such as the African Union, for the United Nations, and for principles based on the Charta of the United Nations, including the Rule of Law, first and foremost.

The article reports about an understandably subdued expression of fear by European leaders and diplomats. In politics, facing reality means being careful about closing doors, in the interest of the own constituency. It also means not to contribute to creating self-fulfilling prophecies. Lastly, it means not to play into the hands of adversaries by giving them the platform of antagonisation and hate which is their only objective.

Yet, there always is a cost attached to everything. The necessity to remain cautious and mindful, it also plays into the overwhelming wish of human psychology to deny reality. In European discussions with everyday people, there are those who do not know about the sheer monstrosity of hate and the open announcement of retribution and retaliation which comes from every sentence uttered by Nr. 45. And of course, I prefer to listen to people who are not right-wing extremists. It would take me a lot of energy to talk to somebody who openly supports the German right-wing extremists within the political party called “AfD”. Whilst I do not listen to those, I am under no illusion that their hate-mongering thinking and sometimes covert, sometimes more and more open action will literally explode in a scenario where Nr 45 would become Nr 47. Our challenge is to find ways of naming the reality as it is without invoking the same which sits at the heart of those extremist’s agenda: Ruling by fear, overruling the rule of law, establishing regime change, overcoming a system from within. Once more, I recall Germany’s history of how the Weimar Republic was defeated from within. By the way, it included the victimisation of own punishment and incarceration, after the so-called “Beer Hall Putsch“.

I am quoting Wikipedia here for ease of reference, though a bit longish: “The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,[1][note 1] was a failed coup d’état by Nazi Party(Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorffand other Kampfbund leaders in Munich, Bavaria, on 8–9 November 1923, during the Weimar Republic. Approximately two thousand Nazis marched on the Feldherrnhalle, in the city centre, but were confronted by a police cordon, which resulted in the deaths of 16 Nazi Party members and four police officers.[2]

Hitler escaped immediate arrest and was spirited off to safety in the countryside. After two days, he was arrested and charged with treason.[3]

The putsch brought Hitler to the attention of the German nation for the first time and generated front-page headlines in newspapers around the world. His arrest was followed by a 24-day trial, which was widely publicised and gave him a platform to express his nationalist sentiments to the nation. Hitler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to five years in Landsberg Prison,[note 2] where he dictated Mein Kampf to fellow prisoners Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess.“

Of course, I would NEVER EVER compare Nr. 45 with Adolf Hitler. NEVER EVER. But it is also fair to link you up with one for many references which may make you think yourself: “Donald Trump’s ex-wife once said Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bed” is a reference to an article in “Business Insider” of September 1, 2015. It is just one of many results of a simple Google search, and references can be found in many reputable news outlets. What I do seriously believe is that Trump is actively using the indictments for his narrative, rather than trying to avoid them.

But back to denial: It is a common experience in which I have an in-depth personal share from many operational situations throughout my time with the United Nations and the European Union: Aside of those who are careful with their words so not to add to fear-mongering, there are those who elegantly snuff at worst-case scenarios, giving an impression as if they would have serious insider-knowledge, assuring you that your worst-case scenarios are but a paranoid dream not based on what they pretend to know. I witnessed too many situations where we woke up to a different reality. After that, those smart people quickly switch sides, pretend grave concern, joining those who say, exhaling moral authority: “How could that happen?”

I don’t say we will wake up in a different world next year. But I will say that chances are close to 50:50. If one only follows American polls, the sheer amount of those who simply stick to Nr 45 is overwhelming. The timidity of all Republican potential contenders of Trump for the Republican choice as Presidential candidate is deafening. The polled support of U.S. citizens supporting violent regime change counts a bit less than 20 Million. The shattered few remains of a healthy Republican core DNA will diminish with an almost unhearable “poof” once Nr 45 would win the race for the Republican candidacy. Retribution and cleansing the G.O.P. will follow as a first step. This scenario is already very much an emerging serious threat. From there, an election campaign would leave the great American people ever more divided and prepared for extremist action. Finally, just in case Nr 45 would become Nr 47, the immediate agenda would be nothing else than cleansing the Administration, everything would be about retribution, retaliation, and riddling the system with spineless brainless hateful self-serving cronies.

The Rule of Law would cease to exist, because I simply can not see the depth of resilience much longer which has brought amazing, brave, and highly skilled representatives of the justice system to where the U.S. is today. Just think about it: Donald J. Trump is defendant in four criminal cases with 91 charges (of which 44 are federal, 47 are state charges), alongside a huge number of co-conspirators. The four cases include the Jan. 6 election case, the classified documents case, the N.Y falsifying business records case, and the Georgia 2020 election case. In the Georgia case, Nr 45 and 18 others stand accused of violations of a powerful anti-racketeering law (RICO), which was solely created for enabling justice to arrest powerful Mafiosi. One of those who prided themselves for using the RICO provisions against the Mafia is now defendant under the same provisions: Rudy Giuliani.

I don’t think it is an over-statement to qualify the threat as being existential for the Rule of Law. The evidence fills whole Internet archives, and is now pouring into the courtrooms, through brave prosecutors, and brave judges. Unsurprisingly, the media is also abuzz with the judgement by doomsayers who assess the risk of indicting a former President as a threat to politics, and democratic governance. I disagree. This can not be tampered down by attempting to subdue the course of justice. Chances are that this would not change the battle for democracy at minimum, it may well be that it would be a serious blow in itself. There is no grey zone in here. It is about black and white, truth must stand up against lies, and the only chief principle is that we shall not fall into resentment, anger, and fear. Because this is what the other side wants.

Can I somewhat end my blog revival entry on a happy note, in case you’re still reading this?

Here is my current list of books I am reading. I bought myself a Kindle Scribe, and it has entirely changed the way I am reading. No books in my travel luggage. An amazing book-size screen. A battery-life for many weeks without even needing a charge.

I read “On The Origin Of Time” from Thomas Hertog. An amazing and equally mind-boggling book about Stephen Hawking’s final theory.

I read Zoe Kors’ “Radical Intimacy”, which is a great read within both the extended and the more narrow meaning of the word “intimacy”.

I read the classic text “The Prophet” by Khalil Gibran, (available in The Guttenberg Project open library).

In parallel I re-read “Psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism” by Erich Fromm.

I am reading Pema Choedron’s amazing book “How We Live Is How We Die” for the fourth time.

I am reading “Polishing the Mirror” by Ram Dass, and I will continue with Daisetz Deitaro Suzukis’ book “Mysticism – Christian and Buddhist”.

Finally, and with great pleasure, I am re-reading a book which I read last time probably four decades ago: Frank Herbert’s “Dune”.

All of those justify an own decription of my impressions. May be I’ll do some, at a later stage. Not here. But reading healthy wholesome literature covering a spiritual connection with the World, from various angles of mystical tradition, and combining that with a well-written book like “On The Origin Of Time”, which ends with surprising statements about what we can not know by means of science, it is one of those things over the summer which allowed me to re-position myself, to re-center myself, and to find new creative energy here, again.

Finally, since I started with a 20-year memory, I am ending with another one, a personal anniversary: Tomorrow it will be the tenth time I am honouring a decision I took August 20, 2013. It marked the beginning of a path which ultimately allowed me to reconcile with my own complex PTSD. It allows me to explain personal experiences and context to my now teenager-children, without being overwhelmed by own emotions. Not that you got an impression that my writing got less intense, if you read the above. Yet, there is a difference between passion and strong emotions.

Grateful that I can detach better. Like taking several months of break from writing here, or on my book projects. Now, back to work. Like, in my job, finding convincing arguments why reducing the threat from small arms and light weapons is important, even when we face the opposite discussion in light of a war in Europe.

There always is a time post-conflict. Better prepare for it now.

essays on policing – status update – initiation of work

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In a few days I will celebrate my 65th birthday. I became a German police officer in the detective branch at the age of 18. Almost 44 years later, in January 2020, I was up for mandatory retirement. About half of these four decades I rose through the ranks of a national Police in Germany. The other half I spent abroad, in senior headquarter and field positions of the United Nations and the European Union. In these functions of UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding, and EU crisis management, policing always was a cornerstone of my work. In my current work as an adviser contracted by the German Federal Foreign Office, policing is an important element within a larger and holistic framework of support action, too.

So, 45 years of policing experience. Related to work in Germany, South-East and East Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, the Carribean. Living in many places in Germany, and in Belgrade, Brussels, New York, Pristina, Sarajevo.

In my article “Seeing Deeper” I reflected on my personal experience with the fundamental shifts, including within the international peace&security architecture, over those two decades of my contribution to it. Of course, the historical timelines which are preceding the colossal changes of these days, they go way back. Some of those I witnessed in a national capacity, some during my international time. Events like, for example, the fall of the Berlin wall, or 9/11, they are examples for moments that we associate with being triggers for fundamental shifts. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they are just the coordinates in space-time where the underlying energies pop up with explosive momentum. Much later, through an analysis of United Nations peacekeeping, I would revisit the bigger picture in which some of these key events played a role, where they had an impact on what I was involved in at that time, the role of policing in peace operations. I have written about some specific aspects related to what we call “international policing” here.

Over those more than 23 years within an international context of peace&security, I witnessed times when there was a lot of enthusiasm about what policing could contribute to supporting peace processes. Policing, done right, is a key component for supporting processes towards lasting peace, and reconciliation. Therefore, support to the establishment of capable policing, deeply anchored in values and international principles and standards, can be a key enabler for lasting peace, and so much more. Think, for example, gender equality, protection of the vulnerable, protection of minorities, ensuring democratic forms of governance, contributing to justice, and in its very core, promoting human rights.

Because of the many years of my own involvement, I witnessed success and failure. The reasons for it are highly complex. Some sit with grappling to understand and to properly implement policing assistance. Some reasons sit way beyond and made it challenging for all actors with military, police, or civilian tasks, to deliver on what they were expected to. On the policing side, where some of my core experience sits, it includes that we, the so-called international community, struggled with making these policing contributions relevant. Sometimes our collective proverbial mouth was not where our money was. Sometimes the political design of international assistance in or after a conflict or war struggled with applying coherence to expectations, objectives and their implementation, either narrowly speaking for what policing could bring to the table, or related to the respective peace operation at large. When we were successful, we had to see that good news stories rarely stick, they are unfortunately not as visible as their bad-news-siblings. At the same time we saw the political development leading to the erosion of the peace&security architecture into its current deplorable state of affairs. This made it more and more difficult for any form of collective international assistance to prove its positive impact.

We now live in a period where a discussion about policing may feel very counter-intuitive compared to the huge focus on military engagement. Just recently, I argued that in my personal opinion it is time to make a decision to provide the Ukraine with heavy battle tanks. That’s not policing. What I am concerned with is to contribute to a discussion in which we do not loose sight about which ingredients are vital for a peaceful society, and that we include lessons from the past into how we want to move forward in a world in which previous rules of engagement may increasingly become outdated.

“essays on policing” is offering a thematically focused window into my work. My writing about my experiences with policing is not motivated by “setting a record straight about a past long gone”. It is not about a sad look back into the “good old times”. It is not about giving advice with an attitude.

It is about incentivizing a quest in order to find contributions to contemporary challenges, and there is no other way than also to make reference to how we did, and failed, or succeeded, during previous challenges. We can learn only by looking into the past, without getting stuck in it.

I feel the best format for doing this is to choose the writing format of essays. This format allows me to find a balance between solid research and truthful facts, and the inevitable personal and subjective element which forms an essential for my contribution. To some extent it will be a walk on the memoir side of things, but thematically grouped. It won’t be a linear historical account of my work experiences. I will jump back and forth, weaving a narrative for how I came to look at specific things from a vantage point of own experiences, good and bad. It hopefully allows me to stay humble. As I said, it is less about advice and more about storytelling within an ongoing discourse in which we all struggle to find meaningful ways forward, keeping us all together.

“essays on policing” is part of a larger set of writing projects. I have ideas for “essays on peace&security”, for “essays on trauma&reconciliation”. In all of them, there is a deep professional and a deep personal element of experience. Looking at the statistics of this blog, some of the articles which create the most, and the most longstanding interest, are about policing. It feels natural, therefore, to start here.

My plan is that this set of essays is forming a book. As a book, I do not plan to publish it here. I do not even know whether I go for self-publishing, or whether I find a publisher. I am not motivated by profit, but I won’t do it for free either. This is going to be intense work, and a lot of time and effort will go into it.

I plan to regularly update you on the project, here on this blog. Once the structure and the outline of planned content is presented here, my thoughts about how I want to publish, and how you could purchase the book, in case you’re interested, will become clear.

I am inviting you to participate. Please do so by sending me a mail: stefanfeller@mac.com.

Proceeds will go into the future of my youngest children. It will be a tiny part of my efforts to make up for time lost, because of my work, and to make good on where I failed to be sufficiently available for them, for reasons which only include my work, but go far beyond. But that will deserve a closer look within “essays on trauma&reconciliation”.

I am working on a dedicated page on this site where you track progress, and where I will describe the content of essays. Meanwhile, my writing here will continue to go all over the place.

On a request to establish a Peace Operation in the Ukraine

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16 March 2022, the international news is reporting about a visit of the heads of the governments of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia to the Ukrainian government. Three weeks into a war of aggression against the Ukraine, prepared in a way meeting the immense security challenges, the highest officials of these governments traveled to Kyiv by train, meeting President Selenskyj of Ukraine. Amongst other, the delegation included Vice President Jaroslaw Kaczynski of Poland. Vice President Kaczynski went public following the meeting by demanding an armed “NATO Peace Operation”, acting with approval by the Ukrainian President, on Ukrainian territory. That request is generating a flurry of public comments, covering the full spectrum of why this would be very complicated, or unlikely, or way too early.

Time to have a select look on the state of peace operations, why current operations struggle, leading to some thoughts on basic preconditions for peace operations, ensuring the unfolding of civilian aid and assistance.

To start with a term the United Nations got used to: “Robust Peacekeeping” was coined some years ago within the United Nations. It was used even by highest officials to describe the environment in which Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) of the UN increasingly found themselves: Being tasked with peacekeeping where there is little or no peace to keep. There is a notion of exasperation and despair in this term which I so vividly remember from many speeches. In the doctrinal framework of the UN, “peacekeeping” sets in after a peace settlement has been achieved, or, after at least some ceasefire agreement has begun to take shape. PKO such as MINUSMA in Mali, or MINUSCA in the Central African Republic provide the painful experiences which forced peacekeepers to adapt to situations where their real raison d’etre was a lofty dream. Never before the UN lost so many lifes, and the UN tried to adapt by making PKO more robust. So, that’s how the term “Robust Peacekeeping” was born. Member States of the UN and the UN Secretariat even accepted a path of providing the PKO MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of Congo with a specially equipped and trained military intervention brigade authorised to “neutralize” elements. A term used for describing offensive lethal operations, not limited to the objective of defending the PKO and its mandate. Much has been written about this extraordinary step going beyond the concept of armed military or police mission elements for self-defence and defense of the mandate in a UN PKO.

There always were some blurry lines between how the UN uses the term “peacekeeping”, NATO is using the term “peace support operation” (PSO), or, in a similar way, how the African Union (AU) describes their own engagement in Somalia through AMISOM. Yet, in broad strokes, there is a distinction between “peacekeeping”, “peace support”, and “peace enforcement”. The UN limits itself to “peacekeeping”, current missions of the European Union in the field of civilian and military crisis management follow that line, NATO has experience in “peace support” and certainly in “peace enforcement”, the AU in “peacekeeping” and “peace support”. All these missions broadly are “peace operations”.

Of course and by contrast, any use of the term “peacekeeping” by the Russian Federation in relation to the horrible invasion of, and war in, the Ukraine by Russia is not only misleading propaganda, but a blatant abuse of the term “peacekeeping”. Taken together with the use of the term “special military operation” it is trying to evade the accusation of a violation of the Charta of the UN: That Russia is waging war against another sovereign State, a Member State of the United Nations. In order to get a common position allowing 141 Member States to condemn, only 35 Member States to abstent, and just Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, Russia and Syria to vote against, the Resolution had to speak of “military operations”. We often hear the phrase “being on the right side” today. On that right side, this military operation is a war. It is ongoing, and it is escalating, and there is no current publicly visible sign hinting towards a path of peace negotiations. Even talks about humanitarian corridors for evacuation of civilian populations utterly fail.

The fact that Russia appears, in addition to violating Art. 2 of the UN Charter, to commit war crimes against the civilian population in the Ukraine, stands separate. 16 March 2022, U.S. President Biden took the unprecendented step calling President Putin of Russia a “war criminal”. Taken the violation of the UN Charter and the alleged committment of acts constituting war crimes together, this is making the use of the term “peacekeeping” by the Russian Federation an insult to anyone who has worn a light blue UN beret, a dark blue EU beret, or the green beret of the African Union.

Vice President Kaczynski’s suggestion to establish a NATO peace operation needs to be specified in terms of what this would mean, and it never is too early to think about what comes ahead. In whichever way the catastrophe strangling the Ukrainians will unfold further, we shall never give up efforts and hope that this can be stopped. From what I understand from the public comments of Vice President Kaczynski, a “peace operation” would require a peace agreement, or a ceasefire declaration, meaning it is not “peace enforcement”. More likely, it would be understood as something resembling “robust peacekeeping”. Then, Russia, and [the Ukraine] would have to agree how to move forward on the incredibly winded road restoring peace & security. Note the square brackets: The Russian President decided to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics declarations of independence just hours before starting his military operations, or, in my view, war. Which led to widespread international condemnation, in return. How a Peace Agreement, or the rationale for a ceasefire declaration would play out will be incredibly difficult, and any international mediation will be a nightmare. But nothing is more important in order to define a difference between a peace operation having a chance of supporting return to peace, and a peace operation where there is no peace to keep. It is the single defining difference for the immense suffering of human beings in the Ukraine.

Many also push against the idea of a NATO peace operation, for the obvious reasons which brought Vladimir Putin to the point of attacking the Ukraine, and demanding its demilitarisation. On top of it, he wants to decapitate the Ukrainian government, claiming a “denazification”. But that is another horrible story, another lie. Here the question would be, in case of any chance for a peace agreement or ceasefire declaration whatsoever, who the implementing organisation or entity would be that could be tasked with a peace operation. From what I have read, Vice President Kaczynski is rather pragmatic: It can be NATO, it can be others. So it can be the UN, the EU, OSCE, NATO, or any combination of those. All of those have done peace operations, in the form of peacekeeping operations of the UN, crisis management operations of the EU, peace support operations of NATO, peace enforcement operations of NATO, or OSCE missions.

As mentioned, it never is too early to begin thinking about what comes after. Too often the results from planning are less than optimal otherwise. Mistakes haunting the international community for years have been made right in the beginning, during the conceptualisation and design phase, and reasons do not only include unalterable facts of the political environment for these planners, but also severe shortcuts because of time constraints. The earlier the thought process and the better the results, the less suffering for people after this war is stopped.

It is suggested that this operation is including at least armed elements, provided with a possible mandate of armed self-defense. Nothing more specific, so far. Also not about which civilian tasks would require armed protection. The request for armed means especially makes a case for a mandate by the UN Security Council (UNSC), since obviously a sole request from the Ukraine would not suffice in the given dispute, and also specifically in light of a historical dispute on interventions, where there was no such mandate by the UNSC. Assuming no veto by any of the five permanent members, the implementation by any suitable international organisation would be possible.

Without a UNSC Resolution, any operation would not survive the first day of our coining it a “peace operation”. It would be treated as a military aggression, escalating the existing conflict, perhaps in dramatic ways. However, it is important to be clear that nothing like that could hope to fly under the brand name of “peace operation”.

Final thoughts on mandate elements of a “peace operation”: Little to nothing has been thought about in the public which elements such an operation would have (military, police, civilian). Nothing is clear in relation to that armed capability, how robust, for which purpose, and whether it will entail military elements only, or also police elements, and whether they would be robustly equipped too, and for which purpose.

On earlier occasions, this blog contains many articles which point towards the vast experience available in the field of international policing and its cooperation with military elements, both in the UN and the EU (including the External Action Service itself, but also specific initiatives started by groupings of EU Member States, such as the European Gendarmerie Force EGF and the Center of Excellence for Stability Police CoESPU). There also is institutional knowledge about these topics within the NATO Center of Excellence for Stability Police.

Sunday News Blues

/ stefanfeller / Leave a comment

Here are a few clustered “pieces of news” which I found myself reading about, and following on various other media, throughout the past couple of days:

  • Afghanistan related news continued to show up on my newsfeeds with a somewhat toned down tendency. Whilst still being a main topic, the fierceness and rage of those weeks in August is lessening. We become used to information about women being deprived from education and from participating in forms of public life, we seem to begin to resign into facing a reality where two decades of successful promotion of women’s rights are being wiped out within weeks. We become used to news about journalists being deprived from the freedom to report. We hear from the humanitarian community warning about an imminent desaster, and we learn about a Taleban government comprising our worst previous enemies. Sometimes I feel that government is just sitting it out: “Don’t produce too bad news about violations of human rights, the international media train will move on after a while.”
  • New news capable to create attention by producing feelings of being upset, being angry, they moved on to Mali. Already being a country where military control replaced civilian governance, within a growing set of West African countries moving away from democratic rules of governance, we now see a potential engagement of the Russian “Wagner Group” mercenaries, on request of the Malian ruling military class, and certainly on basis of profound Russian geo-strategic interests, leading to that France, Germany, and others raise questions of conditionality related to the engagement of our own military capacities, within the United Nations peacekeeping Mission MINUSMA, within EU-led military training missions, and through a multilateral set of counterterrorism forces operating in Mali, and the wider region. Feels like another looming implosion.
  • The most recent clash is a different one: France recalling her Ambassadors to the United States and to Australia for “consultations” after being completely kept in the dark on discussions that led to what now is coined AUKUS. A new alliance being formed in secrecy between the U.S., Australia, and the UK, in a global undertaking confronting China in the Indo-Pacific. A multi-billion deal delivering French conventionally-powered submarines to Australia being scrapped with nothing else than shortest notice, in favor of nuclear-powered submarine technology provided by the U.S., assisted by the UK. These news somewhat also feel like the bookends to a discussion in between, a discourse about the future of the North-Atlantic alliance, and the parallel soul-searching of the European Union where we have a place in all this, including through own military capacities and capabilities. A French President and a French Foreign Minister asking as to which extent there is an extension of abandonment which some hoped to be only temporary during the Trump administration, into the Biden administration. Everyone who is reading this will grasp at least a sense of how profound global alliances and interests are changing. In a different piece, for other channels, I reflected on how much this also affects the work of the United Nations, within the field of peace&security, through political and peacekeeping efforts. Just mentioning that, here. And lastly, at least I begin to make an argument about the emergence of the big picture which explains also why the hard decisions on leaving Afghanistan may have been made: It is about re-organizing political and military might along new geo-strategic lines, and not being timid when implementing it.
  • On a sarcastic note, then there also is rapper Nicki Minaj. For many, here is what CBS graced us with: “The White House has offered Nicki Minaj a call with a doctor, according to an official, after she expressed concerns this week about getting the COVID-19 vaccine. The rapper tweeted on Monday that she wants to do more research before getting vaccinated and claimed that a friend of her cousin’s had experienced adverse effects from it, which health officials have refuted. “My cousin in Trinidad won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen,” Minaj tweetedMonday. “His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding. So just pray on it & make sure you’re comfortable with ur decision, not bullied.” Well, sarcasm also reflecing on that this tweet provides a perfect example for how the media frenzy is providing opportunities for something which I am attempting to describe below.

The above almost arbitrary selection of newsbites which caught my attention yesterday and on this sunny and pleasantly chilly autumn morning in Belgrade, it made me thinking. Because, more often than not, my news selection leaves me with frustration, despair, worry. I know very well what these emotions do to me. If being allowed to go on the rampage, they make me restless and I find myself in a spiral of obsessive reading. My days may not be ending on a positive note then. Like in many other areas of my life, it is about emotional moderation, sometimes we call it emotional sobriety. There is a very thin line between compassion and obsession. If I don’t find a way into some form of loving non-attachment, I take everything personal.

I have to pick and choose amongst the thousands of pieces of information offered by my newsreader. The settings of this newsreader only subscribe to channels which I find interesting, acceptable, in line with my cultural and political belief system. So sorry, Fox News, Bild Zeitung, or alikes. Not subscribing. As a consequence, I have to accept a filtered view on the state of affairs because of my own choices. Solid journalism is not free from beliefs. A robotic emotionless and value-neutral set of information items does not exist. With every new reading, I am solidifying the neural pathways forming my own framework of how I see the world outside myself. With every piece of my writing here, I am doing the same.

The engineers and master-minds behind the advertising machinery and the machinery of political manipulation know about this. Walking in their shoes, I reckon they have at least two questions driving them when optimising their strategies:

  • How to keep people in an existing framework, sometimes also referred to as “ecosystem”? Cynical emphasis put on “eco”. I prefer “belief system” as being a bit more precise. If I go one step further, I would even question “belief” and replace it with “emotion”. Whether we talk about a preference to, say right-wing or left-wing political beliefs, or people using Android or iOS, or PCs or Macintoshs, or being a hard-core fan of BMW or Mercedes, it doesn’t matter. Examples are endless. It’s all about emotions, creating emotional attachment, and emotional dependency.
  • How to manage cross-overs, meaning, getting people moving over from one system to another? That, too, is all about emotions.

In a digital realm profoundly based on psychological knowledge how to manipulate, and how to exploit the neuroscience of addiction, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a blessing for those performing Black Magic. As a consequence, I navigate to the best of my education and ability to at least identify some of the manipulation efforts which are ferociously thrown at me every time I enter the Internet. Not only my computer needs a firewall, my brain needs a firewall as well, allowing me to stay clear from malicious forms of manipulation and from fake news. This goes so much deeper than only avoiding spam and malware attacks. “Social engineering” is a term which had been coined by the hacker scene. But AI takes social engineering to a quantum leap, and a new meaning: Very much like the hacker uses some fake personal credibility through phone calls in order to gain entry, social media perverts the personal meaning of “friends”. One click allows me to request somebody to be my “friend”. Nobody does this free from emotions: Whether I ask somebody in person to be my friend, or I push a button, the emotional reaction is very similar, may be except for sociopaths. With that person’s accepting click, we’re done! I have a new friend, and it is creating an emotional reaction again. If, then, a friend tells me a story, I tend to believe, or to support the attitude behind. That’s what friends do, right?

AI aiming at getting me to become a member of a group of friends, or a “follower” of another category of people, called “influencers”, that’s the wizardry of really smart social engineering. By the way, as perverted the digital meaning of “friend” may be, as cynically clear is the meaning of “influencer”. An “influencer” does what the name is suggesting: Influencing. Not “reasoning”, “informing”, or “entertaining”, but “influencing”. Stomach this. I don’t want to be a friend, nor a follower of, say, Nicki Minaj (see above). My son is dreaming of becoming an “influencer”. Because it’s all about status. But then the opposite to “being an influencer” is “being influenced”. There both is a benign meaning given to it by the new generations of smartphone kids, and a very malicious one, covertly applied by those who manipulate for reasons of profit, or ideological, religious, or political agenda. For those less benign, it is about that content only serves one purpose: Generating a click. There is no difference between somebody using that in order to catch followers adoring long and carefully draped blond hair sitting on top of a rosy face, and somebody who does this in order to catch attention to some specific upper torso specifics.

Nicki Minaj’s boobie-trapped testicle-reasoning against Covid-19-vaccines contributes to fueling the mistrust of millions, and of course because it just is a fancy way for Nicki to create attention for her media circus. No accountability, or sense of responsibility, Ms. Minaj, taking into account the Covid-deaths, suffering, and infringements on the rights of vaccinated people? People who can not pay themselves into privileged high-society realms, now including space, since this weekend’s SpaceX Inspiration4 spaceflight of a billionaire with his three friends?

One of the reasons why democratic values are so much challenged these days: Democracy works best when people make educated choices, and when there is at least some pretention of that all of us are equal. At least that was the idea. If we don’t find a way back into this understanding, democracy may be shown the way to the exit door.

My personal choices in this new world include that I stay almost entirely away from social media sites, like Twitter, FaceBook, Instagram, Tic Toc. I also am extremely concerned about their impact on emotional health issues of teenagers. Parenting two teenagers who struggle heavily with this, like millions of other teenagers too, I need to put this aside for another blog entry.

Yes, I have a select set of Youtube channels and I actively use Youtube to broaden my views on things I am interested in. Yes, I have a LinkedIn profile which I use only in a very restricted manner. But mainly, my own subjective worldview is based on choices I make when reading news in the Internet, using my Newsreader. I try to avoid the worst honeytraps of manipulation, and to mitigate the remainder through educated choices.

I consider myself being moderately good at this. I am aware of that I am blessed with sound education, a very broad experience, a non-local life-style, and broad cross-cultural and inter-cultural experiences. In this, I belong to a global minority. This summer allowed me, again, to see this. I traveled for many months and I stayed on campsites all over Europe, making many experiences meeting people from all walks of life. Sourcing my information from verified channels makes me part of a minority.

It’s not only about the quality of the news sources. It also is about the depth and the width. In order to understand (or trying to) global events, I need to maintain a global perspective. In order to understand complexity and interdepedency of events, I need to inform myself about a large variety of topics. Otherwise, developments seem local, disconnected, and hard to understand. Many people who I have met don’t do that. They source their information from unverified sources, they show limited interest to what happens outside their neighborhood, they feel overwhelmed by the onslaught of complex bad news. But they all try to make meaning.

No surprise then how seductive the simplifications offered by pied pipers are. Threatening narratives sell on feeding grounds soaked with fear. This I have expressed in various pieces on my blog here, and I feel it is not enough. There is some more, but I struggle with how to describe it in a way that is making sense without becoming too lengthy in this piece.

But I would end with that people in democratic societies vote. We are one week away from German Federal elections. I keep fingers crossed. Until then, I’ll go for a forest walk now enjoying the beautiful Belgrade late summer.

The End Is Just The Beginning

/ stefanfeller / Leave a comment

On this blog entry I have been on and off. Processing so many experiences from this summer, personal, and professional, this piece of writing tries to find common issues in very different fields. Sometimes I am happy with progress expressing what wants to come out, sometimes I feel like wanting to throw it into the bin. When it pops up on my blog, a future version will have made me pushing the “Publish” button. The following is what you then will read. Hope you find it interesting.

Essentially, this is a personal reflection on change. Choosing the title “The End Is Just The Beginning”, I planned to continue writing on Afghanistan and the wider context of implications which I see. I wanted to reflect on my perception that the current development for many people appears to feel like a defeat, and an end. To me, the notion of the “end” just being a “beginning” reflects on the only eternal universal truth: Everything changes.

I arrived back in Belgrade at the same time when a long and hot summer heat wave is ending. The weather is changing. Since a few days the first signs of the fall can be sensed. Temperatures significantly down, the blue sky is often replaced with the darkish grey of rain clouds. The long summer days are now followed by shorter periods of daylight. For a while I will be switching to a more stationary routine in my apartment after three months of being a digital nomad. Well, we will see how long I can keep my itchy feet under an apartment table, mitigating the risk of restlessness and focusing on healthy aspects of constant, but somewhat moderated change.

On a larger scale, what kind of change will happen for me next? During the summer I thought about the many different places scattered around the world which form part of what I would call my “home”. Partly, “home” is about places. More importantly, “home” is about meaningful connection to the people in my life who matter to me, and to whom I matter. Everything, places, situations, relationships, everything changes over time. Like everyone else, I experience times where I embrace change, and times when I dread it, when I cling, when I try to control change. I have found during the pandemic that it is possible to nurture important relationships in my life, though they are long-distance. Using videoconferencing, voicemail, calls, texts I could find a way even deriving comfort from virtual contacts with children, loved ones, friends. But there needs to be physical contact, too. So, “home” is also about deciding where to live close to some of those who matter in my life. At the end of the summer, I could see a path forward, and change is coming up, and is being embraced by me.

Then there is a book on my reading list. Tiziano Terzani’s Book “Das Ende ist mein Anfang”, literally in English “The End Is My Beginning” (German description of the book here; English description of the movie based on it here). The book patiently waits for my being ready to read it. The subtitle reads “A Father, A Son, and the Big Journey of Life”. The son, Folco Terzano, interviews his father Tiziano, who is in his last days. The son and the father talk about the meaning of life, and about the father’s experiences as a widely traveled journalist. The book is not ready for me, yet. It patiently waits, there is no hurry, it will tell me when I am supposed to read it. It touches a nerve:

I had many talks with my father over the past months. I see his existential fear, his suffering from his ego feeling locked down in an ageing and frail body. There is a stubborn denial on his side, rejecting any notion that he might not be able to live without help at some unknown point in the future. There is despair about the meaninglessness of days now and in the future, and a strong attachment to memories of the past. Sometimes, he almost exclusively lives in his memories, when things still did have a future perceived as being meaningful. On other occasions, I saw some clarity about the inevitable deterioration, and some peaceful acceptance. Mostly though, I witnessed a heartbreaking fight against upcoming defeat, and a perceived end.

Being his son, by logic I am younger than my father. I feel healthy, which allows my vain thinking ego to tell me that I am significantly younger. My ego tells me that I can do more of the same. That my future includes further extension of external validation. That my career continues with growth of the same kind that was its hallmark for many decades.

Spending time with my father, I saw what happens when we miss a transition into a different kind of growth. A kind of inner growth that does make use of the vast accrued experience of many decades, and transforms it into learning about how I can be be useful to others. I saw, and I see in my own case, how the ego clings to control, discriminates between “me” and everything “non-me”. The Buddhists talk about the duality coming from this discrimination, Buddhism teaches non-duality. To those of us who do not get enlightened early on, working on giving up the duality view reflected in “us and them” is a lifetime assignment.

Some profound changes in my life are based on developments eight years ago. So I was able to be with my father, and at the same time to reflect on my own experiences with denial, control, and the importance of external validation for my inner own esteem. I feel great compassion for my father. And I know that I have plenty of time for learning to stop worrying about the future, any perceived “endings” and wasting time by regretting the past long gone: I have today, which is endless. It means that I accept change, that I embrace change, that I am happy with change. There have been really painful experiences in my life, including somewhat recently, on what happens when I cling, deny change, deny knowledge about how toxic a situation, a relationship, or an environment, may have become for me. The denial always sits with attempting to find external reasons for the toxidity. The acceptance of change only always came when I focused on my own contribution to the toxic situation, relationship, or environment. And always, this required to experience yet another “hitting rock bottom”.

In our individual lives we run through uncounted iterations of postponing to accept that everything composite has a beginning and an end. Through many decades of our lifetime we manage to postpone thinking about the inevitable, piling up more activities and goals giving meaning to the respective phase of life we are in. As if this could go on in eternity. So, instead of understanding also the final phase of an “individual” life as a means to achieve growth, we close our eyes, pile up more external things day after day, year after year, until we simply can not go on any longer.

Then we feel being defeated.

In the world of recovery from trauma and resulting compulsive-addictive pain-sedation, we call this process “reaching rock bottom”. It is an absolutely inevitable final point when one realizes that one has no control any longer. It is the starting point of change. When we realize that we do not have control, and only then, we are able to acknowledge that our circumstances have become unmanageable. It is the ensuing breakdown which sets the stage for the new beginning. When an individual realizes that the own self sits at the root of all misery, and not external circumstances, that is the point from when on positive change is possible. Never this happens one second before. It is what I experienced eight years ago, and I practice since then. I have seen this fundamental principle everywhere, and I am just realising that it is true for the situation we find ourselves collectively in, in Afghanistan and beyond, too.

Because, in a very similar way, I have perceived the phases of our two decades of intervention in Afghanistan. We had reasons for the beginning. We discovered reasons for why to continue. We came up with new meaning when growth wasn’t working any longer. We realized that it can not continue the same way in all eternity. At some point we did not know how to make further meaning of it, so we somehow soldiered on, without a real vision how to transform things into growth, beyond our international interventions. Means of control, and of denial, worked less and less. We blindsided ourselves in relation to the inevitable, and now we feel defeated. Very much the same way an individual “ego” feels defeated, our corporate consciousness feels the same.

How does it feel for Joe Biden having to make a decision ending a seemingly endless war, and not really having a blueprint that would best mitigate the ensuing paradigm changes? I prefer to say “paradigm change”, rather than talking about chaos, since this wrongly indicates we have no way forward. There is suffering in what was, and there is suffering in what is. Now he and his administration have to face the early, and very harsh, judgements which come in through uncounted articles, OpEds, interviews. All legit. But I sympathise a lot with the U.S. President’s decision to pull-out. Obviously, it is a chaotic, messy, dramatic, heart-breaking pull-out. There is all reason to believe that we could have done better, together. As if there only was this guy, Joe Biden, or as if there was only that messed-up negotation between Nr 45 and the Taleban. No, throughout twenty years we all carry our own share of responsibility adding to the mess, we all do good looking onto our own respective side of the street.

But at the end, I wanted to say what I began with: This needs to be understood containing the piled-up energies which explode into paradigm change. The mistakes we piled up for two decades, they did not allow for any less-explosive unfolding. That is why we need to embrace the change. Simply because it is not an end. It is a chance to do things differently, together, and in humility.

We tend to think in beginnings and endings. We think in activities, and blocks of activities. We categorize. We come up with goals, and we put them on timelines. It is a way to reduce complexity, and we attempt to give meaning to what we do. In doing so, we usually look into the future from a perspective of the past, and when we have reached a goal, it becomes part of the past, we move on, to the next goal. Often, it distracts us from seeing what there is right now, and that there is nothing else than the Now.

Zooming out, so to speak, a larger view reveals the process-nature of everything. Things don’t stop when we have done something, when we have achieved something. Or when we are defeated by something. Everything is part of processes, of constant change. Everything moves. Constantly.

Afghanistan – Rear-Mirror-View or Looking Ahead?

/ stefanfeller / 2 Comments

At the time of this writing (August 24, 2021), its been 11 days ago that I published my first thoughts on the catastrophic events unfolding in Afghanistan, and the shockwaves within the International Community beginning to grasp the extent of our collective failure. At that time, the Taleban stood at the gates of Kabul. Two days later, then Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled Kabul and his country, reportedly with a lot of money, according to this report, 169 million USD in cash. Following the implosion of the government, Taleban fighters and Taleban political representatives were in Kabul in no time. Afghanistan fell, may be except a little pocket, the Panjshir Valley, which appears to be under Taleban siege for now. No need to recollect the events that followed that implosion and collective failure of the International Community, and the Afghan Government. They will haunt us for years to come. Today, the G7 are convening a virtual meeting, called in by the current G7 chair, the United Kingdom. Much, if not all, will be about pressing the U.S. President into extending the deadline for the presence of U.S. troops at Kabul International Airport. Germany participates in a frantic multinational evacuation mission for own citizens and Afghan individuals being at imminent threat for life and limb. Two days ago, Al Jazeera estimated the total number of evacuated people being roughly 28.000, “tens of thousands more [are] still waiting“.

The breadth of discussions on all channels in relation to what went wrong is overwhelming in the West. The depth of these discussions varies. Like many of my friends, I am glued to these news. I belong to those who do not appreciate too much those discussions and statements that are varying mixtures of a broad bunch of mostly backward looking reflections, struggling to find simple answers, palatable for the digestion by the wider and less informed general public, addressing an intractable complexity which festered into twenty years of incoherence of international efforts. Strategic incoherence, because of political incoherence. There is no way to implement coherence if there is a lack of it at the top. Politicians trying to giving meaning in hindsight, overlooking the rubbles of an endeavor which lost its inner compass for a million of reasons. Of course many of these statements come with the unfailing appreciation for the services and sacrifices of soldiers, and humanitarian workers. Sometimes I notice that the police officers who were in this seem to be mentioned as well. But the rear-mirror-view needs to be put aside. Because of this sheer complexity, finding meaningful answers may need so much time that their use for the immediate and mid-term future is very limited.

I have begun to filter my input by looking for honesty in statements, hoping for more humility, wanting to see more apologies, and less self-reflection on national reasons why we were all in this. Because, we all are in this. For many reasons, I like this interview by my “boss”, the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, because I am desperate for any sense of humility combined with visionary forward-looking statements, messages that give us a sense of hope that we will find a way forward, beyond rescuing as many as we can, shivering in relation to how those feel who will, almost inevitably, be left behind.

I feel sorry and sad beyond words.

I am upset about the humanitarian crisis on an unimaginable scale. I am bitter and horrified about the incoming news on alleged summary executions in places outside Kabul. Today, the top United Nations human rights official says she has received credible reports of serious violations committed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, including summary executions of civilians and restrictions on women and on protests against their rule. The executions appear to also include former government officials and members of police and military.

I began to write this article to get my personal context connecting me to the cause of the Afghan people out of the way. I wanted to explain briefly that I am not just a “concerned citizen”, but that, and how, I have been involved in everything since 2001, since the very beginning. Writing the above, I realised that my reflex simply was to add even more noise to the Rear-Mirror-View. So I’m not doing this.

In my line of actual work I have begun to analyse those implications coming from the catastrophic events which I can see, or anticipate, right now. The discussions which I had about it since a few days, they relate to the consequences of, again, an implosion of security, law and order, an implosion of governance, and all our experiences we have made with how crime, transnational organized crime, violent extremism and international terrorism thrive under conditions like these. We, or I, have seen this so often. At the same time, these discussions made clear that even this segment (crime&security) is only a small element of all possible implications of something which seems to be a catastrophic event, but by no means is a local event. The situation has uncounted interdependencies to other factors in our globalised world which contribute to further instability, and further failure.

That’s why I argue that we need to find vision, energy, compassion, strength, and humility for an urgent brainstorming which would advise us on what we can do, beyond rescue operations, inside Afghanistan, inside the Region, and in all kinds of regional neigborhoods, including Europe, and the European Union.

Fast, please. And together, please. Let us stop talking about “us” and “them”. This is not about the West. This is about us. All of us.

Some questions on Afghanistan – And beyond

/ stefanfeller / 2 Comments

Like so many in my community, I feel an overwhelming helplessness in light of what is happening in Afghanistan during the recent months, weeks, and days. I am witnessing long and painful discussions about what one can do, in light of the sheer force with which the Taleban are overrunning cities, provinces, and are closing in on Kabul. The speed with which this is happening is scary.

Often these discussions are based on a solid layer of angry rambling about the rapidity of military withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has had immediate consequences for other, civilian, assistance which the international community has engaged in for almost twenty years now. Like, when the German military announced its withdrawal, being left with no other option in light of the U.S. decision and the subsequent trickling down into NATO deployments, it was a matter of weeks until end of April 2021 that the German bilateral assistance to capacity building for the Afghan policing services ended, after almost twenty years. Nothing was left behind.

Of course, and rightly so, there were pledges for continuing assistance to Afghan partners on the civilian, including policing, side. But then the conquering of more and more territory and cities by the Taleban happened at a speed which, according to media sources, took even military and intelligence planners by surprise. Now we are, within days, in a scenario where we read and hear about contingency plans on the side of diplomatic representations, reducing their staff to the minimum necessary core. We hear about U.S. negotiations with some Taleban representatives calling for sparing the U.S. Embassy in Kabul from retribution. We hear about calls by governments like the U.S., the UK, Germany, and many others, on their respective national citizens to leave Afghanistan as early as possible.

So we are redrawing the map of possible international assistance during a time which appears not to allow any meaningful forward planning. Everything is based on contingencies. And those calls on the Taleban that the international community will not support a caliphate, threatening the withdrawal of any financial assistance, as much as these statements are rightly put out, they give a futile impression. Diplomacy being the only means for the moment in order to influence the rapidly deteriorating situation, it struggles with credibility in itself. How much of a threat comes from statements like these when Taleban may look for alliances with other forces, and States? States and forces that do not stand for values which we promote, and have promoted in Afghanistan for almost two decades? Values like human rights, the inalienable right of self-determination for women, children, vulnerable groups and minorities? Values like individuals and communities represented through democratic forms of governance? And the values inherent to a rule of law based on international standards, individual and human rights, what about those?

Within the onslaught of written and video reporting about this, I saw news where Afghan women told reporters that they feel being abandoned by international partners. I can only sympathize. Whatever we may tell them, whatever explanation we come up with in relation to why there needed to be an end to an otherwise seemingly endless military intervention campaign, it does not take away this argument. Yes, vulnerable groups, communities, individuals, they rightly express their feeling that they have been left alone. Because this is true, no matter which rationale we use. We have left. And we have left them at the mercy of a movement which has imposed a brutal regime more than two decades ago. Shall we believe those spokespersons of the Taleban that this is not true these days? On my part, I won’t. In my view, this would be foolish. It would be the desperate attempt to close one’s eyes from an undesirable and shameful reality. I prefer not to. Trust comes from credible action. I have not seen any action on the Taleban side that would convince me that this is different, now.

So, aside of all arguments about why the military campaigns failed, or all arguments with which some attempt to say it wasn’t a failure, that we defeted Al Qaeda, and so on and so forth, aside of all dogma discussions on the failure of state building, I stick to the core of what I can see: The current situation likely deteriorates into further violations of human and individual rights for vulnerable individuals, groups, and women and children in the Afghan society. And these violations may occur on a massive scale. Why? Because we have seen that in the past, it’s as simple as that. We have seen it in Afghanistan, we have seen it in northern Mali, we have seen it in many places in the Middle East and Africa, we have seen it in a caliphate which was set up by IS. Do we really need to remind ourselves of the atrocities which have been coming along with radical fundamentalism? Do we need to open the archives of how a strictly imposed law of the Sharia looks like? Do we close our eyes on taking away the right of self-determination from women in Afghanistan? Do we blind ourselves about the fact that already now female children in Taleban-occupied territory can’t go to school any longer?

Whereever we live, people like me believe in promoting the values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the values of democracy and a rule of law as a system of governance. We see the international system of peace & security becoming more and more eroding, less able to act on a global consent, if at all, when confronted with a country moving away from these principles, or a movement attempting to subjugate an entire population under their cruel interpretation of reality. Whatever it is in addition, the Taleban movement is a fundamentalist movement of men entirely disrespecting values of female members of society, on grounds of an intepretation of Islam which is so far away from the wonderful and peaceful texts which also form a part of Islamic culture, and belief.

It is one thing to witness it from the outside. In Afghanistan, we were inside. We assumed responsibility of assistance, and we became accountable ourselves. So, it is very different to see such deterioration happening in Afghanistan because we took the decision to leave.

Time will tell whether we find a collaborative way forward. But what, if we fail in this, too? Which lesson will this present to those who are opposed to values which we, for a long time, considered to be universal? What does it mean to those values themselves?

In Buddhism, we talk about the temporary nature of all composite things. Do we see the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its impermanence?

I have no wisdom to offer. But it looks like pointing towards the picture which is at the core of this blog: At some point, I think in 2015, staff members of the United Nations’ Headquarters in New York donned white clothes and gathered outside of the headquarters building. They formed a circle which then was photographed from the air.

The circle reads: “What r u doing for peace?”

Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī is commonly known as “Rumi”. He lived in Balkh, now part of Afghanistan, in the 13th Century. One of be greatest Islamic mystic poets, I admire his work so much.

Here is my long-time favorite, also a part of how I set up my blog from the beginning on:

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing 
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.” 
― Rumi

Initiative zur Unterstützung der Aufnahme afghanischer Ortskräfte

/ stefanfeller / Leave a comment

Hier ein paar Links, wo dieser Aufruf seit heute (14.05.2021) auch veroeffentlicht ist:

http://nachtwei.de/index.php?module=articles&func=display&aid=1694

https://michaeldaxner.com

https://thruttig.wordpress.com

https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/bundeswehr-abzug-aus-afghanistan-bringt-unsere-afghanischen-helfer-in-sicherheit-a-a8256379-63e7-448a-9ae7-3af08e5f4faf

Abzug der Bundeswehr aus Afghanistan: Afghanische Ortskräfte in Sicherheit bringen!

Der Abzug der deutschen Truppen aus Afghanistan hat begonnen und soll voraussichtlich Anfang Juli 2021 beendet sein. Das Bundesverteidigungsministerium hat erklärt, dass es in der Abzugsphase zu einer größeren Gefährdung der Soldatinnen und Soldaten kommen könne. Medien zitierten unter Berufung auf einen vertraulichen Bericht des Auswärtigen Amtes und des Bundesverteidigungsministeriums, dass die Bundesregierung eine weitere erhebliche Verschlechterung der Sicherheitslage nach dem Abzug erwarte. Während die Truppe unter verstärkten Sicherheitsvorkehrungen längst bei den Vorbereitungen zur Rückkehr ist, wachsen die Befürchtungen der afghanischen Ortskräfte, die oft viele Jahre für die Bundeswehr, die deutsche Polizeiausbildungsmission, die staatlichen Zwecke der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit u.a. tätig waren – als Dolmetscherinnen und Dolmetscher, Wachleute und Hilfskräfte. Sie fürchten um ihre Sicherheit und ihr Leben – wie auch um das ihrer Familienangehörigen.

Wir fordern eine unbürokratische und schnelle Aufnahme der Betroffenen in Deutschland parallel zum Abzug!

Die Taliban haben immer wieder deutlich gemacht, dass sie diese Ortskräfte als Kollaborateure des Westens begreifen, die sie als Unterstützer eines militärischen Besatzungsregimes zur Verantwortung ziehen wollen. Über Anschläge auf und  Morde an Ortskräften wird seit Jahren berichtet, u.a. aus britischen, deutschen und US-amerikanischen Quellen. Letztere berichten von etwa 300 getöteten US-Ortskräften. Viele Ortskräfte haben versucht, sich Bedrohungen durch Umzug in andere Regionen Afghanistans zu entziehen, was aber nur selten eine dauerhafte Lösung und das Ende der Gefährdung ist.

Bundesverteidigungsministerin Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer hat Mitte April von einer tiefen Verpflichtung der Bundesrepublik gesprochen, die afghanischen Ortskräfte jetzt nicht schutzlos zurückzulassen. Zu befürchten ist aber: Genau das geschieht. Wer die effektive Aufnahme wirklich will, der kann in den verbleibenden Wochen nur eine unbürokratische Prozedur für all die Ortskräfte und ihre Angehörigen umsetzen, die für deutsche Stellen gearbeitet haben: Öffentliche Bekanntgabe des Aufnahmeprogramms, Registrierung, Vorbereitung der Ausreise, die möglichst geschehen muss, solange die Bundeswehr noch im Lande ist, ggf. Durchführung von Charterflügen.

Der Verweis auf das bisherige Aufnahmeprogramm für afghanische Ortskräfte mit Abgabe einer individuellen Gefährdungsanzeige bei Vorgesetzten, in der nachgewiesen werden muss, dass für Bedrohungen durch die Taliban die Tätigkeit für deutsche Stellen entscheidend ist, ist angesichts der neuen Sicherheitslage nicht mehr zielführend. Das bisherige Verfahren ist viel zu zeitintensiv, insbesondere seit die Kapazitäten des deutschen Kontingentes im Lande mit dem beginnenden Abzug Woche für Woche schwinden.

Seit 2013 wurden nach Zahlen des Verteidigungsministeriums knapp 800 Ortskräfte(plus Familienangehörige) in Deutschland aufgenommen, fast alle jedoch innerhalb eines kurzen Zeitraums, nachdem das Programm diese Chance eröffnet hatte. Zwischen 2014 und 2021 sind dann gerade einmal 15 zusätzliche Aufnahmen hinzugekommen – trotz einer in diesem Zeitraum immer weiter sich verschlechternden Sicherheitslage.

Zügige Aufnahme statt untauglicher Vorschläge

Das Bundesinnenministerium verweist wenige Wochen vor dem Truppenabzug die Ortskräfte auf das alte Prüfungsverfahren mit seinem bürokratischen Aufwand, was in der Kürze der Zeit nicht praktikabel ist. So steht zu befürchten, dass es kein effektives Aufnahmeprogramm, sondern lediglich ein Pseudo-Prüfungsprogramm geben wird.  Der ehemalige Wehrbeauftragte des Bundestages Reinhold Robbe hat schon vor Jahren den Umgang mit den Ortskräften als „beschämend“ und „unwürdig“ bezeichnet(vgl. bundeswehr-journal v. 17.10.2014). Diese Diagnose gilt bis heute. Wer seinen Dienst als Ortskraft vor mehr als zwei Jahren beendet hat, der soll von der Aufnahme in Deutschland ausgeschlossen bleiben.  Im Ernstfall werden sich die Verfolger bei den Taliban wohl kaum an dieser Frist orientieren. Und noch nicht einmal die zuletzt beschäftigten ca. 500 Ortskräfte, die nicht pro forma bereits wegen dieser Ausschlussregelung aus dem Programm  herausfallen, sollten sich darauf verlassen, dass aus der Ankündigung der Bundesverteidigungsministerin und guter Absicht praktische Hilfe wird.

Ein Büro für afghanische Ortskräfte in Kabul und evtl. an einem anderen Ort, so das BMI, soll eingerichtet werden, wo dann(Wann?) das umständliche Prüfungsverfahren zur Aufnahme stattfinden soll  –  als ob man sich nicht in einem Land befände, in dem längst ein Großteil der Regionen nicht mehr von der Regierung kontrolliert wird, Reisen riskant sind und selbst die deutsche Botschaft nur noch eingeschränkt operieren kann.  Zu befürchten ist, dass ein solches Büro für die Taliban ein vorrangiges Anschlagsziel werden könnte, insbesondere wenn sich die Sicherheitslage weiter verschärft.

Waren die Ortskräfte  in den Jahren 2014/15, als der größte Teil derer nach Deutschland kamen, die eine Aufnahmezusage erhalten hatten, eine Gruppe, die unter den Geflüchteten hierzulande oft übersehen wurden, so haben sich in den Jahren danach Solidaritäts- und Unterstützungsstrukturen herausgebildet, nicht zuletzt auch ein Patenschaftsnetzwerk der Bundeswehr. Denn auch dort vertraten viele die Auffassung, dass denen, die die Einsatzrisiken mit deutschen Soldatinnen und Soldaten geteilt hatten und ohne die insbesondere die Verständigung in Afghanistan kaum möglich gewesen wäre, in bedrängter Situation geholfen werden müsse. Und für deren Integration wollte man sich einsetzen.

Anlässlich der Vorstellung eines Buches der Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung im Dezember 2019, in dem die Rolle der afghanischen Ortskräfte dargestellt und gewürdigt wurde, brachte es einer der Mitautoren des Buches und langjähriger Bundestagsabgeordneter auf den Punkt:“(…)die Schlüsselrolle der afghanischen Ortskräfte: Ohne sie wäre der Einsatz unmöglich und von vorneherein aussichtslos gewesen. Mit ihrem Dienst für deutsche Einsatzkräfte meinten viele, ihrem Land am besten dienen zu können. Sie nahmen dafür hohe Belastungen und Risiken in Kauf. Dafür gebührt ihnen von deutscher Politik und Gesellschaft Aufmerksamkeit, Dank, Anerkennung nicht nur verbal(…) sondern auch praktisch. Wo Ortskräfte von sozialen und existenziellen Einsatzfolgen betroffen sind, an Leib und Leben, oft zusammen mit ihren Familien, da steht die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (…) in einer selbstverständlichen Fürsorgepflicht. Das ist ein Gebot der Verlässlichkeit, der Glaubwürdigkeit und auch der politischen Klugheit.“

Ähnlich sehen es auch US-Militärs:  Ex-US-General David Petraeus hat sich zusammen mit der Nichtregierungsorganisation No One Left Behind  Ende April in einem Brief an US-Außenminister Antony Blinken dafür eingesetzt, alle notwendigen Ressourcen aufzubieten, um die afghanischen Ortskräfte aus Afghanistan herauszuholen, bevor die letzten US-Truppen das Land verlassen.

Zwar haben einige andere Truppenstellerstaaten, die z.T. schon vor langer Zeit aus Afghanistan abgezogen sind, ihre Fürsorgepflicht für die Ortskräfte ebenso verstanden und  einigen „ihrer“ Ortskräfte  Aufnahme gewährt.  Demgegenüber waren andere Staaten zögerlich und stehen nun ebenfalls, wie die Bundesrepublik, vor der Situation, von Absichtserklärungen, die nicht eingelöst wurden, zu wirksamen Verfahren zu kommen. Jetzt, wo der vorzeitige und bedingungslose  Abzug der US-Armee wie des deutschen Kontingentes die Risiken dramatisch erhöht hat, wäre ein anständiges und großzügiges Verhalten der Bundesregierung mehr denn je nötig. Wie sollten sonst diejenigen, die Unterstützer*innen in gefährlicher Situation zurücklassen, künftig erwarten können, als verlässliche Partner in allen Bereichen der internationalen zivilen und militärischen Zusammenarbeit angesehen zu werden?

Angesichts der akuten Bedrohung bisheriger Ortskräfte an Leib und Leben und bezugnehmend auf die Wertegebundenheit deutscher Krisenengagements(s. Leitlinien „Krisen verhindern“ der Bundesregierung 2017) erheben wir eindringlich die folgenden Forderungen:

Zügige und unbürokratische Aufnahme afghanischer Ortskräfte und ihrer Familienangehörigen parallel zum laufenden Abzug des deutschen Kontingentes.

Öffentliche Verbreitung von Informationen über ein zu diesem Zweck vereinfachtes Verfahren für (ehemalige) Ortskräfte in Afghanistan.

Verzicht auf Prüfungsprozeduren, die in der Praxis weitgehend unmöglich oder für die Antragsteller*innen unzumutbar sind.

Verzicht auf Ausschlusskriterien, die der Realität nicht gerecht werden, wie die Beschränkung auf Personen, die in den letzten zwei Jahren als Ortskräfte tätig waren.

Erstunterzeichner:innen Stand: 13. Mai 2021, 18.00 Uhr

  • Pfr. Albrecht Bähr, Sprecher der Geschäftsführung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Diakonie in Rheinland-Pfalz
  • Prof. Dr. Ingeborg Baldauf, Afghanistan-Forscherin an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
  • Dr. Hans-Peter Bartels, MdB 1998-2015, Wehrbeauftragter 2015-20
  • bee4change e.V., Hamburg
  • Hannah Birkenkötter, Mitglied des Bundesvorstandes der Deutschen Gesellschaft für die Vereinten Nationen
  • Prof. Dr. Thorsten Bonacker, Zentrum für Konfliktforschung, Philipps-Universität Marburg
  • Eberhard Brecht, MdB und Mitglied des Präsidiums der Deutschen Gesellschaft für die Vereinten Nationen
  • Dr. Doris Buddenberg, Leiterin des UNODC-Büros Afghanistan 2004-06
  • Prof. Dr. Michael Daxner, Berater des afghanischen Hochschulministers 2003-2006, Leiter des Afghanistan-Projekts im SFB 700 FU Berlin bis 2018
  • Hans-Jörg Deleré, Neustadt-Pelzerhaken, DIPL.Bau-Ing. Straßenbau, als Sohn eines deutschen Beraters des afgh. Ministeriums für Öffentl. Arbeiten in Kabul aufgewachsen (1951-57) und 2006-09 im Auftrag der GIZ und des AA in Afghanistan tätig
  • Bernhard Drescher, Oberstleutnant a.D., Bundesvorsitzender Bund Deutscher EinsatzVeteranen e.V.
  • Detlef Dzembritzki, MdB i.R., Vorsitzender der Deutschen Gesellschaft für die Vereinten Nationen
  • Stefan Feller, Senior Adviser Auswärtiges Amt zur Kleinwaffenkontrolle, Leiter Polizeiabteilung im Rat der EU 2008-12, Leitender Polizeiberater des Generalsekretärs der Vereinten Nationen 2013-17
  • Botschafter a.D. Dr. Karl Fischer, Stabschef United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan 2001-04
  • Marga Flader, für Afghanistan-Schulen e.V.
  • Freundeskreis Afghanistan e.V., der seit 1982 Selbsthilfeinitiativen im Land fördert
  • Alexander Gunther Friedrich, UN Executive Secretary (rtd)  
  • Thomas Gebauer, Mitglied im Kuratorium der stiftung medico international
  • Rainer L. Glatz, Generalleutnant a.D., Befehlshaber des Einsatzführungskommandos der Bundeswehr 2009-13
  • Kristóf Gosztonyi, Forscher und Berater internat. Organisationen in Afghanistan, z.Zt. Univ. Osnabrück
  • Angelika Graf MdB a.D., Ehrenvorsitzende der SPD-Arbeitsgemeinschaft 60 plus, Vorsitzende des Vereins “Gesicht zeigen – Rosenheimer Bündnis gegen rechts” und Ombudsperson der Hilfsorganisation HELP
  • Antje Grawe, UNAMA 2006, 2008-10 und 2018/19
  • Marcus Grotian, Vorsitzender Patenschaftsnetzwerk Afghanische Ortskräfte
  • Heike Hänsel, MdB und Mitglied des Präsidiums der Deutschen Gesellschaft für die Vereinten Nationen
  • Matthias Heimer, Militärgeneraldekan, Leiter des Evangelischen Kirchenamtes für die Bundeswehr
  • Generalleutnant a.D. Norbert van Heyst, 3. Kommandeur der International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul von 10.02. – 11.08.2003
  • Dr. Haschmat Hossaini, Literatur- und Sprachwissenschaftler (Iranistik), Berlin
  • Prof. Dr. Klaus Hüfner, Präsident a.D., Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission
  • Dr. Margret Johannsen, Senior Research Fellow am Institut für Friedensforschung und Sicherheitspolitik an der Universität Hamburg (IFSH)
  • Jürgen Kanne, 2. Vorsitzender Afghanic e.V.
  • Hans Peter von Kirchbach, General a.D. und ehem. Generalinspekteur der Bundeswehr
  • Dr. Anne Koch, Forschungsgruppe Globale Fragen, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Berlin
  • Susanne Koelbl, Journalistin „Der Spiegel“, Initiatorin des Poetry Project mit afghanischen Flüchtlingen
  • Tom Koenigs, MdB i.R., UN-Sondergesandter für Afghanistan 2006-07
  • Karin Kortmann, Vize-Präsidentin des Zentralkomitees der Deutschen Katholiken (ZDK)
  • Gerald Knaus, Gründungsvorsitzender European Stability Initiative (ESI), Wien/Berlin
  • Prof. Dr. rer.pol. Dr. h. c. theol. Klaus Leisinger
  • Dr. Kerstin Leitner, Beigeordnete Generaldirektorin, WHO, Genf
  • Dr. Thomas Loy, Oriental Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prag
  • Klaus Ludwig, Bundespolizeibeamter a.D., langjährige Erfahrung am Flughafen Ffm; seit 2016 ehrenamtliches Engagement in der Betreuung afgh. Flüchtlinge
  • Eckhard Maurer, Kriminalhauptkommissar i.R., Garbsen, leitete 10 Jahre lang khyberchild e.V. mit Projekten in Afghanistan
  • Bernd Mesovic, Mitarbeiter von PRO ASYL a.D.
  • Kerstin Müller, MdB 1994-2013, Staatsministerin im Auswärtigen Amt 2002-05
  • Botschafter a.D. Bernd Mützelburg, Leiter Abteilung Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik im Bundeskanzleramt 2002-05, Sonderbeauftragter des Auswärtigen Amtes für Afghanistan und Pakistan 2009-10
  • Winfried Nachtwei, MdB 1994-2009
  • Nanette Nadolski, Marketing- und Kommunikationsberaterin u. Afghanistan-Netzwerk bei matteo e.V., Weichs
  • Prof. Dr. Sönke Neitzel, Universität Potsdam
  • Dr. Hannah Neumann, MdEP
  • Prof. Dr. Christine Nölle-Karimi, Wien, Stellvertretende Direktorin, Institut für Iranistik, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  • Karin Nordmeyer, Präsidiumsmitglied der Deutschen Gesellschaft für die Vereinten Nationen
  • Dr. med. Thomas Nowotny, Arzt, Stephanskirchen, Initiator http://www.change.org\nodeportation
  • Johannes Pflug, MdB i.R., stellv. Sprecher für Außenpolitik der SPD-Bundestagsfraktion sowie Vorsitzender der SPD Task Force Afghanistan/Pakistan 2009-13
  • Maximilian Pichl, Wissenschaftl. Mitarbeiter am Fachbereich Rechtswissenschaft Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
  • Ruprecht Polenz, MdB 1994-2013, Vors. des Auswärtigen Ausschusses 2005-13
  • Nadia Qani, Inhaberin des kultursensiblen Pflegedienstes in Frankfurt/Main und Autorin
  • General a.D. Egon Ramms, Oberbefehlshaber Allied Joint Force Command der NATO in Brunssum 2007-10
  • Generalleutnant a.D. Friedrich Riechmann, erster Befehlshaber des Einsatzführungskommandos der Bundeswehr 2001-04
  • Reinhold Robbe, MdB 1994-2005, Wehrbeauftragter des Deutschen Bundestages 2005-10
  • Thomas Ruttig, Afghanistan-Analyst, UNSMA/UNAMA 2000-03, Stellv. des EU-Sondergesandten für Afghanistan 2003/04
  • Dr. Lutz Rzehak, Privatdozent, Zentralasien-Seminar der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
  • Narwan Sayed, Hamburg
  • Klaus-Hermann Scharf, Vorsitzender Fachbereich Zivile Beschäftigte im Bundesvorstand des Deutschen BundeswehrVerbandes
  • Niklas Schenck, Autor und Filmemacher
  • Prof. Dr. Conrad Schetter, Professor für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, Universität Bonn, und Direktor des Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC)
  • General a.D. Wolfgang Schneiderhan, 14. Generalinspekteur der Bundeswehr 2002-09
  • Wolfgang Schomburg, ehemaliger Richter am Bundesgerichtshof und den UN-Tribunalen für das frühere Jugoslawien und Ruanda
  • Georg Schramm, Kabarettist (ZDF-Sendung „Neues aus der Anstalt“)
  • Ulrike Schultz, Journalistin, Mitarbeiterin der Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung Islamabad und Kabul 2001-09
  • Dr. Hans-Ulrich Seidt, Deutscher Botschafter in Afghanistan 2006-08
  • Dr. Anja Seiffert, Bundeswehr-Forscherin, Leiterin für die sozialwissenschaftliche Begleitung des Afghanistaneinsatzes seit 2009
  • Kava Spartak, Berlin
  • Dr. Rainald Steck, Deutscher Botschafter in Afghanistan, 2004-06
  • Andrea Thies, European Police Mission in Afghanistan, 2008-15
  • Uwe Trittmann, Studienleiter Evangelische Akademie Villigst / Berlin (Villigster Afghanistan-Tagung)
  • Verband afghanischer Organisation in Deutschland e.V., Berlin
  • Dr. Kira Vinke, Sprecherin des Beirats Zivile Krisenprävention und Friedensförderung der Bundesregierung
  • Dieter Wehe, Inspekteur der Polizei NRW (2002-15) a.D., Vorsitzender der Bund-Länder Arbeitsgruppe Internationale Polizeimissionen (AG IPM) 2002 -20
  • Thomas Wiegold, Journalist, Berlin
  • Dr. Almut Wieland-Karimi, Leiterin des Landesbüros Afghanistan der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung 2002-05Kathrin Willemsen, Unterstützer:innen-Initiative Oranienburg
  • Ronja von Wurmb-Seibel, Autorin und Filmemacherin
  • Oberstleutnant Andre Wüstner, Bundesvorsitzender des Deutschen BundeswehrVerbandes
  • YAAR e.V., Berlin
  • ZAN e.V., Frankfurt am Main
  • Massieh Zare, Bremen
  • Prof. Dr. Christoph Zöpel, MdB a.D., Staatsminister im Auswärtigen Amt, 1999-2002

Futuretelling

/ stefanfeller / 2 Comments

The New York Times editorial board recently wrote about the latest report published by the collective of American intelligence agencies: “Global Trends 2040”. Since a while, such a report is being issued every four years, at the beginning of the term of a new U.S. administration. It aims to assess and to anticipate where the world will be headed over the next two decades. Released April 15, 2021 by the National Intelligence Council, quoting from the OpEd, the report “finds that the pandemic has proved to be “the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II,” with medical, political and security implications that will reverberate for years. That’s not sturm und drang. It’s the prologue to a far darker picture of what lies ahead.”

The report can be downloaded here, and it is a very interesting read. As the authors themselves make clear, “scenarios are not intended to be predictions but to widen the aperture as to the possibilities, exploring various combinations of how the structural forces, emerging dynamics, and key uncertainties could play out“. Noone can foretell, at least until now, the future by analysing the key dynamics of the past and the current situation. But even without the five scenarios which the report is drawing up, already the five general themes identified by the report are a valuable narrative and assessment themselves, not least because the report synthesizes intelligence methodology and information with a wide range of global consultations outside the intelligence community, inter alia including societal stakeholders and civil society.

148 pages can not be summarized correctly here. Neither I want to do this. Rather, I would like to create interest in reading it oneself, by reflecting a little bit, including through own thoughts, on the themes of the report.

Five themes are identified: (1) Global Challenges, (2) Fragmentation, (3) Disequilibrium, (4) Contestation, and (5) Adaption.

Global challenges include climate change, disease, financial crises, and technology disruptions. The report states that they are likely to manifest more frequently and intensely in almost every region and country. Their impact on states and societies will create stress, or even catastrophic shock. The report assesses the current pandemic as “the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come.“

This assessment resonates a lot with what some, or increasingly many, of us begin to realize: The pandemic was not a temporary event which would cripple us for a few months until summer 2020. It is ongoing, and I belong to those who feel that it will not be gone for a longer period of time, despite all containment efforts, including lockdowns, and vaccinations. Moreover, I feel we might be in a transitory phase where “defiance meets acceptance”, where things have become a norm which we would not have believed to witness a few years ago. Last weekend, I walked over an empty promenade along the shores of the river Rhine. Provisional signs regulated that, between Friday 1 pm and Sunday 7 pm, as well as between 10am and 7pm on public holidays, this strip could only be used wearing a facemask. Boy, those who got self-righteous when seeing people without facemasks, how many of them would have raised their eyebrows when seeing Asian tourists wearing facemasks on airports, just a few years ago?

This example of weird and perhaps over-regulating buerocracy just being used as a picture for my feeling that we transition into a new normal, where the fabric of societies is becoming altered beyond a temporary timeline. The depth of any analysis needs to go deeper, but some of those changes which appear to be there to stay, they become slowly visible.

It is also true that over the past year or so, the pandemic discussion with all its horrific extremes, including through simply denying it, playing it down, glossing it over, inciting polarisation and anger, it all deflected from the big threat underneath: The threat through climate change. Nothing made this less urgent, we just stopped paying attention.

Fragmentation flows from these global challenges almost logically. Whilst each of these challenges is transnational, even global, the report also pays attention to a new “smallness”, as I would coin it. Psychologically even understandable: Overwhelming threats will lead to a reflex raising the shield, or “turtling up”. In my view, such a defensive reflex will also be increasingly accompanied by selfishness. Every self-protection is a selfish but necessary act, simply because it is about protecting myself. However, with many things perceived as being at threat, including medical and economic well-being, this may lead to an unwillingness to share, outside a limited and accepted circle. But we may also see that such a fragmentation, somehow, works, because it may not affect global trade or global communication. The Internet grew during the pandemic, and so did the transportation of goods. There are winners in the economy, Amazon being just one of those, and most visible for us when we pick up our jeans, underwear, or groceries on our own doorsteps.

Disequilibrium is the third theme of the report, flowing again from the previous, fragmentation. It may be less visible for many, especially during selfish times, but it carries enormous destructive potential. The report focusses on its effects in a widening gap between what societies, communities, and individuals expect from governance and services, and what they can deliver. Thus, the report addresses the credibility challenges which became apparent already before the crisis. Legitimacy of democratic governance, and credibility of elected officials in such a system, this is not something new since the beginning of last year. Neither is the profound inability of systems of international order providing peace, security, and other important issues enshrined in the sixteen Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. The pandemic may just have been the rocket fuel which incensed the already existing slow-burning wildfire. Like I said in my previous blog entry: Feels like a perfect storm.

Contestation is the fourth theme. We see it already. Wealthy societies pump their reserves into handling the crisis, and into the race of getting out on the other side in the best position for competing, on economical and power levels. But the report also identifies disruptive potential of contestation inside societies. In my view, these will just increase the intent of societies and states to stay competitive. In this regard then, wealthy societies will stand a much better chance. Poor societies will be left to their own devices of internal contestation. Conflict, violence, exodus, displacement, migration will have an effect on those more developed societies which, given all the above, might even lock themselves down even more. Lockdowns keeping others out. For me an interesting question: How will tourism develop? The more we can pay, the more likely we will spend our holidays in protected resorts? May be in wealthy societies we will see the “One Percenters” enjoy themselves in even more luxurious seclusion, those who always have been local and rural might not feel a difference at all, and the forces tearing things apart will be felt by the many in between?

Adaption being the final theme, I have the most diffiulties to identify with the anticipation, because it is so difficult to see where adaption will lead us to, locally, regionally, and globally. Of course, we will adapt. We already have begun. However:

My blog is about peace, security, trauma, and reconciliation. Somehow, all my entries here revolve around this set of topics. So, whilst I encourage to also read the scenarios in depth which form large parts of the main body of the report, I wanted to offer some thoughts just related to this introductory part of the report itself. Thoughts related to my focus.

The challenges for values, such as human and individual rights, democracy, the rule of law, they have only been growing over the past many years. The Covid-19-pandemic is pouring gasoline on this fire, and some of the developments become more visible for more people. The influencing factors which may lead to even more erosion during a time of new adaption, they are captured well in the five themes raised in the report. Not necessarily expressis verbis, but one can see it. Much will also receive more detail in the main body of the report, but in these introductory sections, these challenges are incorporated in a larger context, but are not made standing out for those who may only read executive summaries.

But taken together, global challenges, fragmentation, disequilibrium and contestation do pose significant risks to how we help an international system in its adaption and, at the same time, transfer as much of these values into it, these values which have meant so much for many of us for many decades. In a competitive world driven by economic and power contest on the one hand and more fragmentation on the other hand, maintaining these values is one of the big challenges. We can only maintain values “at home” if we also contribute to their promotion abroad. With a different phrase, Kemal Atatuerk said the same, or the European Union in their strategy documents from 2003. It stays true, however, and even more so today. Otherwise, gaps will be filled by others, and ultimately the usefulness of these values will also be questioned in any disequilibrium at home. Selfishness will lead to greed if others are more successful, with or without values like the above. Ultimately, forces which contest these values will grow.

So, in preparing for a new world order, it continues to be absolutely vital for us “at home”, wherever that is, and whatever it means, if we continue to share.

That is where we need visionary leaders, willing to take risks by maintaining that we need to share, even if the storm of anger from those who feel disenfranchised blows straight into their faces. We will see much more erosion, we have not reached rock-bottom yet.