Humorless, fatalistic, excruciatingly dull. You'll love it, Clark.
Copyright 1999 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
Foreign Affairs
January, 1999 / February, 1999
SECTION: ESSAYS; Pg. 103
LENGTH: 5198 words
HEADLINE: Saving America from the Coming Civil Wars
BYLINE: Steven R. David; STEVEN R. DAVID is a Professor of Political Science at The Johns Hopkins University.
BODY:
ECHOES OF YUGOSLAVIA
RECENT EVENTS have given the lie to the conventional wisdom on civil wars: that they are private matters which great powers may simply ignore. Over the past ten years, America has again and again found itself in the middle of foreign, internal conflicts, from Haiti to Somalia. And nowhere has the focus been so acute or the consequences as immediate as in the Balkans. The United States and its Western allies have worked hard -- though with limited success -- to end the wars that erupted when Yugoslavia collapsed. Western interests were directly implicated; concern over humanitarian abuses, the risk of war spreading to neighboring states, and the future of NATO itself justified American and European intervention. Dayton seemed to win a fragile peace for Bosnia. But the threat of war in Europe now looms as likely as ever, as elections return Bosnian hard-liners to office and the uprising simmers in Kosovo. The prospects of achieving a lasting peace in the region are slim, and these problems are likely to vex American policymakers for years to come.
The attention paid by the West to the wars in the former Yugoslavia should come as no surprise. Only recently have superpowers refrained from involvement in internal conflicts. Traditionally the case has been just the opposite. And with good reason: revolutions in France, Russia, and China sparked profound changes in the international system that remain with us today. During the Cold War, internal conflicts in Korea and Vietnam drew the United States into costly interventions, while domestic strife in E1 Salvador and Nicaragua dominated American foreign policy through the 1980s. For the Soviet Union, internal wars provided the source for both one of Moscow's greatest victories (Cuba) and one of its most costly defeats (Afghanistan).
Since the collapse of the U.S.S.R. (brought on in part by the Afghan disaster) and the end of the Cold War, new questions must be asked about civil wars and American interests. Proxy fights between Russia and America are no longer likely. The domino effect is no longer a concern. Though wars within states continue to outnumber those fought between them, many now argue that the United States should turn its back on these internal squabbles. These civil wars, they argue, are the domestic affairs of poor, weak countries, not important enough to merit American involvement. Getting enmeshed in complicated disputes and age-old hatreds will sap American resources -- and for no good reason.
There is something to this view. Most civil wars do not directly threaten the United States or its allies. While recent internal conflicts have raised humanitarian concerns, none has seriously affected American security or economic interests. This, however, was largely a matter of luck. The United States should recognize a vital and sobering truth: that Russia, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia all now stand on the brink of civil war, conflicts that would have devastating consequences for the United States. These consequences are not the traditional dangers of state-to-state aggression, such as outside attack or invasion. Though largely ignored by scholars and policymakers, who remain fixated on the idea of international conflict, internal war has emerged as a principal threat to security in the post-Cold War world.
THE END OF THE WORLD (AS WE KNOW IT)
CONFLICTS FOUGHT within the borders of a single state send shock waves far beyond their frontiers. To begin with, internal wars risk destroying assets the United States needs. Were the Persian Gulf oil fields destroyed in a Saudi civil war, the American economy (and those of the rest of the developed world) would suffer severely. Internal wars can also unleash threats that stable governments formerly held in check. As central governments weaken and fall, weapons of mass destruction may fall into the hands of rogue leaders or anti-American factions. More directly, internal wars endanger American citizens living and traveling abroad. Liberia will not be the last place America sends helicopters to rescue its stranded citizens. Finally, internal wars, when they erupt on U.S. borders, threaten to destabilize America itself. U.S. intervention in Haiti was spurred, in large part, by fear of the flood of refugees poised to enter the United States.
All of these dangers are grave enough to warrant consideration; what makes them even more serious is the fact that their impact on America is largely unintended. Being unintended, the spill-off effects of civil wars are not easily deterred, which creates unique challenges to American interests. U.S. policymakers have traditionally tried to sway foreign leaders through a simple formula: ensure that the benefits of defying America are outweighed by the punishment that the United States will inflict if defied. That calculus, however, no longer applies when there is no single, rational government in place to deter. This raises the cost to America; if the United States (or any country) cannot deter a threat, it must turn to actual self-defense or preemption instead. Unlike deterrence, these strategies are enormously difficult to carry out and in some cases (such as preventing the destruction of the Saudi oil fields) would be impossible. Without deterrence as a policy option, Washington loses its most effective means of safeguarding its interests.
Where are these new threats likely to crop up? And which should the United States be concerned with? Two criteria must guide policymakers in answering these questions. First is the actual likelihood of civil war in any particular state. American interests would be endangered by a war in Canada, but the prospect is so improbable it can safely be ignored. Second is the impact of a civil war on the United States; would it threaten vital American security and economic concerns? Future conflict in Sierra Leone may be plausible, but it would have such a negligible impact on the United States that it does not justify much attention.
Only three countries, in fact, meet both criteria: Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Civil conflict in Mexico would produce waves of disorder that would spill into the United States, endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, destroying a valuable export market, and sending a torrent of refugees northward. A rebellion in Saudi Arabia could destroy its ability to export oil, the oil on which the industrialized world depends. And internal war in Russia could devastate Europe and trigger the use of nuclear weapons.
Of course, civil war in a cluster of other states could seriously harm American interests. These countries include Indonesia, Venezuela, the Philippines, Egypt, Turkey, Israel, and China. In none, however, are the stakes as high or the threat of war as imminent.
BREAKING MEXICO'S HABIT
MEXICO TODAY faces a future more uncertain than at any other point in its modern history. Pervasive corruption financed by drug traffickers, the end of one-party rule, armed revolt, and economic disaster have all surfaced over the past few years. In response, the Mexican army has begun to question its decades-old record of non-interference in politics. Should Mexico collapse into chaos, even for a short period of time, vital American interests will be endangered. This, in turn, raises the specter of U.S. intervention.
The growing influence of drug money is the greatest single source of Mexican instability. The narcotics industry has worked its way into the fabric of Mexican society, to the extent that it is now Mexico's largest hard currency source (estimated at $ 30 billion per year) and is probably the country's largest employer. As in Colombia, drug dealers threaten to take control of the state. More worrying, senior Mexican officials -- including those in charge of the antidrug effort -- are routinely found to be working for drug cartels. Major drug traffickers have assembled their own private armies and operate without fear of prosecution. Crime, much of it drug financed, runs rampant throughout the country, particularly in Mexico City. In 1995, then-CIA director John Deutch signaled his concern for the impact of drugs on Mexico by making that country a strategic intelligence priority for the first time. It may, however, already be too late for help from Washington. The control of Mexico by drug traffickers will be hard to reverse, especially since, given the central role the drug lords play in Mexican life, doing so might further destabilize the country.
The Mexican economy provides a second source of civil conflict. The country still has not recovered from its 1994 economic crisis, when the devaluation of the peso sparked fear of total financial collapse. Disaster was averted by the extraordinary intervention of the United States and the International Monetary Fund, which provided a $ 50 billion bailout. Despite this assistance, inflation climbed to 52 percent (up from 7 percent the year before), real earnings dropped by as much as 12 percent, the GDP shrank 6 percent, and over 25 percent of Mexicans fell seriously behind in debt repayment. Though conditions have improved slightly in the years since, the basic problems that caused the devaluation in the first place remain -- such as reliance on foreign investment to finance growth. These problems, combined with crushing Mexican poverty (85 percent of Mexicans are either unemployed or not earning a living wage), falling oil prices, and the widening gap between the prosperous north and the impoverished south, together form the basis for future unrest.
Ironically, the advent of true democracy has further threatened Mexican stability. For 70 years, the Institutional Revolutionary Party ruled the nominally democratic country as a private fiefdom. The PRI made all key decisions and chose all important officials (including the president) while suppressing meaningful dissent. The monopoly ended in 1997, however, when the PRI lost its majority in the lower house of parliament to two competing political parties. The Conservative Party (PAN) now threatens the PRI in the more prosperous north while the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) has gained support among poor southerners, students, and intellectuals, and has won the key post of mayor of Mexico City. The fall of the PRI may enhance stability in the long term, as oppressed groups see their demands addressed for the first time. But the transition itself will be dangerous; states in the process of democratizing are far more vulnerable to civil conflict than are mature democracies or authoritarian regimes. As opposition parties declare their intent to expose the PRI's corrupt and criminal history, the order which Mexico has enjoyed for 70 years will be the first casualty of the new freedom.
As if to illustrate the potential for disorder, major armed uprisings have once again erupted. Mexico has suffered a long tradition of regional warfare, dating back to its earliest days of independence. After decades of peace, this threat reemerged in the mid-1990s, and now endangers the stability of the state. In January 1994, some 4,000 "Zapatista" rebels, fearful of losing their land, seized seven towns in the southern state of Chiapas. Though they were poorly armed, the support they received throughout Mexico and the army's inability to quell their revolt starkly demonstrated the weakness of the Mexican government. That weakness grew even more pronounced when it was revealed that the government had turned to paramilitary groups to suppress the rebels. One such group massacred 45 civilians in December 1997, sparking widespread protest and investigations of government complicity. Meanwhile, the less well known but potentially more dangerous People's Revolutionary Army (EPR) launched a rebellion in 1996 by attacking military and economic targets in six southern states. Unlike the Zapatistas, the EPR openly seeks to overthrow the current regime. While its prospects of doing so may be remote, the EPR's very existence drives a thorn into the government's side.
Amidst these struggles, the Mexican military may abandon its long tradition of noninvolvement in politics. Since the 1980s, the government has called on the military to suppress drug-related violence within the country. This use of the military for domestic purposes drew it directly into political disputes it had shied from in the past, and risked spreading corruption within the ranks. Meanwhile, the end of the PRI's monopoly on power may further destabilize the armed forces. For the first time in their history, the troops face an institutionally divided leadership. The military might split into rival political factions, especially if opposition parties are prevented from exercising power.
Conflict in Mexico threatens a wide range of core American interests. A civil war would endanger the 350,000 Americans who live south of the border. Direct American investments of at least $ 50 billion would be threatened, as would $ 156 billion in bilateral trade and a major source of petroleum exports. Illegal immigrants would swarm across the 2,000-mile frontier, fleeing civil conflict. And armed incursions might follow; during the Mexican Revolution of 1910, fighting spilled over the border often enough that the United States had to deploy roughly half its armed forces to contain the conflict. In a future war, the millions of Americans with family in Mexico might take sides in the fighting, sparking violence within the United States. |
