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Nawaz Wins: What’s Next in Pakistan?

 By Patricia Lee Sharpe

The count’s still contested here and there—and loudly, especially in Karachi, which is no surprise. But the outcome is clear: the Pakistan Muslim League (N) won enough seats in last week’s parliamentary election to form a government all by itself. No need for coalition building in Islamabad.

That’s good. One-party government makes it easier to get things done, especially when there’s a responsible opposition to temper ideological excesses. Such an opposition the out-going People’s Party, whose lackluster performance in power made electoral defeat inevitable, has pledged itself to be.  Even so, the PPP won slightly more seats in Parliament than the perky new kid on the block, the Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice Party) founded by ex-cricketeer Imran Khan, which had hoped to win a parliamentary majority.  The U.S. should be happy.  Khan has been very critical of Pakistan's relations with the U.S.

A Milestone

Before we start looking toward the future via a rather murky crystal ball, let’s pause to note an important milestone. For the first time in Pakistan’s history, the 2013 election will allow a civilian-led government to hand the baton to another civilian government. U. S. President Barack Obama has already congratulated PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif, and maybe this time—having been granted a third go as Pakistan’s Prime Minister—Nawaz will manage to complete a term in office. In 1999, Chief of Army Staff Pervez Musharraf, with whom Nawaz had just waged (and lost) a high-altitude, mid-winter, mini-war against India, staged a coup and sent him scampering into exile in Saudi Arabia.

A New Nawaz?

“I’ve mellowed.” So says Nawaz, but the world around him may have changed more than he has. To name just a few of the more dramatic events of the past decade or so: the Twin Towers catastrophe in New York; U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq; the rise of drone warfare; the elimination of Osama bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein; the Arab spring and its messy aftermath; the still raging civil war in Syria; the earth-shaking awakening of the Chinese dragon; the death of Kim Jung Il.There's more, but the point has been made.

A New Military?

Nawaz also faces a different Chief of Army Staff.

Many times during the lead up to last  Saturday’s polling, I thought that the level of election-related violence—car bombs set off; candidates, party officials and ordinary people murdered; a high-level kidnapping—must surely have reached coup level. The Army would step in, declaring with the usual paternalistic panache that poor old Pakistan still isn’t ready for democracy. It didn’t happen.

Perhaps the Pakistani military under General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, has also mellowed. At the very least, Kayani honored his pledge (or inclination) to keep the Army out of the electoral process, even if that meant the Pakistani Taliban’s selective violence might skew the results toward parties they gauged to be more sympathetic to the Islamist cause. Taliban targets tended to belong to the MQM, the PPP and the AWP, all openly secular in orientation.  An interesting note: the PML-N insists that it too was harrassed, as if Nawaz feels some need to show there's air and light between him and the Taliban.  Even more important: Taliban threats notwithstanding, people in most constituencies flocked to the polls to exercise their right to vote.

Diplomacy Lesson from the Past - Kathryn Wasserman Davis

By Patricia H Kushlis

Kathryn Wasserman Davis died at 106 on April 23, 2013. No cause for her demise was reported although it was reported that she was a strong supporter of environmental causes.

Kathryn Davis came from a line of women’s rights activists and internationalists. Among her earliest memories were those of her suffragette mother demonstrating in downtown Philadelphia for the women’s right to vote. True, I read that in her Wikipedia biography but Mrs. Davis also told me the story herself and if my memory serves, she proudly showed me a black and white photo of her mother’s political activism in action.

Had Mrs. Davis been of my generation, I have to wonder if she would have retained her Republican identification: her viewpoint and that of today’s Republican Party seem so antithetical.

Swiss interlude

From 1969-1975 Katheryn Davis’ husband Shelby Cullom Davis was US Ambassador to Switzerland, a country where the couple had first met as university students. He made his fortune in the financial insurance business on Wall Street turning a considerable sum of money from his wife’s family into considerably more. Presumably he bought the Ambassadorship through donations to the Nixon for President Campaign. That’s how those positions happen. The Davis’s knew the right people and well, money would have likely quietly changed hands moving from their considerable assets to the campaign’s seemingly effortlessly.

I never had the impression, however, that Ambassador Davis was simply after the title or that he wanted to run things at Jubeläiumstrasse 93. More likely both he and his wife had a long standing love affair with the country, wanted access to the people who mattered and simply liked the upper class Swiss life style. He had a strong career deputy named Richard Vine who later returned as Ambassador. Davis left the running of the embassy to Vine as well as dealing with the Swiss on substantive issues (the main one being banking secrecy – my how things don’t change).

From one Canton to the next

So the Ambassador and Mrs. Davis traveled the country – from one canton to another – showing the stars and stripes as the Viet Nam War wound down and meeting and greeting local officials, members of the general citizenry as well as patting the heads of the farmers’ well kept cows.

When in Bern, the Davises were gracious and generous hosts and kind to Embassy staff.

I wonder had Mrs. Davis been born just two or three decades later whether she would have pursued her own career – either as a career diplomat (she had the background – including a stint at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and a PhD in international relations from the University of Geneva - and the intelligence to do so) or in the private sector - not just as helpmate to and source of investment capital for her husband. At least, she would have had the choice.

Can the Foreign Service Reform Itself? If so how and where to begin?

By Patricia H. Kushlis

I have been documenting serious problems with the State Department’s approach to its most precious resource, its human capital since January 23, 2008. These problems, in reality, began well before 2008. This post “Can the Foreign Service Reform Itself?” has been added to the ever lengthening – now nearly book-length – list entitled “The Troubled State of State” affixed to WhirledView’s top left sidebar.

There have been various institutional arrangements established to mitigate the human resources problems at the State Department. Too many of these arrangements are in desperate need of change. One is the pressing need for an Inspector General as Secretary Kerry has recently and rightly stated. Another is the fundamental reform of an institution called the Foreign Service Grievance Board where too often Foreign Service personnel disputes are sent for resolution.

The following recommendations on reform of this board are by an experienced Foreign Service Officer currently caught up in State’s human resources labyrinth. The officer outlines weaknesses of this board and suggests ways they can be mitigated.

As the author rightly points out, “we owe it to ourselves and our country to ensure that, as we promote workers’ rights and respect for the rule of law around the world, our internal governance reflects our values.” Clearly, I think the State Department falls far short. This thoughtful analysis and its recommendations need a considered and careful read:

Fixing the Foreign Service Grievance Process: Seven Simple Reforms

The Foreign Service grievance process, as currently constituted, is crippled by illogical, unnecessarily complex procedures and structural conflicts of interest.

This must change. We owe it to the Foreign Service community to put in place a user-friendly process that resolves disputes quickly, equitably and with dignity. We owe it to the American taxpayer to stop the current system’s massive waste of human and financial resources. And we owe it to ourselves and our country to ensure that, as we promote workers’ rights and respect for the rule of law around the world, our internal governance reflects our values.

Outlined below are seven areas in which the process is out of step with contemporary norms, along with common-sense reform proposals aimed at increasing both fairness and efficiency. It is my hope that these ideas can start a broader conversation aimed at establishing a grievance process that is fairer, more transparent and more efficient.

1. Mediation: resolve cases whenever possible without a formal grievance

In the private and intergovernmental sectors, and elsewhere in the Federal Government, it is common practice to try to resolve disputes quickly and amicably through the intervention of trained external mediators. This strengthens workplace morale by facilitating rapid, mutually acceptable solutions. It also saves money by averting time-consuming administrative proceedings and litigation. State offers no such option.

While the FSGB “encourages the parties to consider and engage in voluntary efforts to settle the case” and offers the services of one of its members to serve as a mediator “[a]t the joint request of the parties,” this offer comes too late in the process to make a difference: after the aggrieved employee has filed a formal grievance with the Department, received an adverse response, and filed an appeal with the Board. If mediation is to work, it needs to be seen as a first, rather than a last resort.

The Department and AFSA should agree on a roster of qualified external mediators, and offer their services to employees upon request as an alternative or precursor to the grievance process. Any costs involved would be more than offset by savings realized through a decreased grievance workload.

2. Objectivity: remove responsibility for initial adjudication of grievances from the Bureau for Human Resources

The Department’s Grievance Staff, which adjudicates employee grievances, sits within the Bureau for Human Resources, which exercises direct responsibility over the vast majority of “grievable” actions and decisions. This constitutes a direct conflict of interest: grievance attorneys who “review” impugned HR decisions report to the same Director General under whose authority those decisions were taken in the first place.

This discourages accountability, and encourages costly and time consuming defenses of even obviously erroneous decisions. Responsibility for the initial adjudication of grievances should be transferred to the Office of the Legal Advisor, or to a special office established under the direct authority of the Secretary.

3. Segregation: Separate responsibility for adjudicating grievances from responsibility for defending the Department’s position

A further conflict of interest is the dual (or even triple) role played by the HR Grievance Staff. The same official who oversees the initial investigation and adjudication of a grievance then turns around and represents the Department when that same case comes before the FSGB. The need to build a case with a view to an eventual defense before the Board represents an insurmountable conflict of interest, which prevents the Grievance Staff from serving as a truly objective finder of fact in the initial adjudication of the grievance. The investigation/adjudication and advocacy functions should be clearly segregated, and assigned to different offices. Ex parte communications between those offices should be strictly prohibited.

4. Perspective: Reconstitute the Foreign Service Grievance Board to eliminate the perception of bias and ensure a broader interpretation of “the Department’s interest.”

 The members of the FSGB, while appointed by the Secretary, are recruited by the Bureau for Human Resources, and the Board includes many retired Foreign Service Officers with extensive experience in the HR Bureau. While the Board’s members, individually, may adhere to the highest standards of personal integrity, this practice as a whole, like the placement of the Grievance Staff in HR, perpetuates at least the perception of bias in favor of Department management. Ideally, grievance panels should be composed of distinguished jurists and/or labor relations experts with no direct links to State HR (in most other systems, HR experts are available to the board in an advisory capacity, but do not sit as voting members). Each panel should include an AFSA representative, specifically charged with ensuring that the rights of the grievant are respected throughout the process.

5. Expeditiousness: Shorten procedural timelines, and institute a fast-track procedure for time-urgent cases

On Dealing with the Hermit Kingdom

By Patricia H Kushlis

Does North Korea’s leadership belong in the madhouse or Alcatraz as so many of our right wing politicians, militarists and some journalists seem to suggest?  Or are they behaving as sanely – at least from their perspective - as their accusers?  Is there something important going on in Pyongyang that is overlooked here that should be considered?

I attended an excellent two-day Santa Fe World Affairs Forum symposium on US-East Asian relations at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico early last week:  The North Korean nuclear threat, China’s capabilities and future intentions, reasons for Myanmar’s immense political changes and the overall ramifications of the changing face of Asia for US interests were at the top of the agenda.

Several years ago, then President George W Bush labeled North Korea – as well as Iran – as the Axis of Evil. This reversed Bill Clinton’s softer line that may or may not have been making progress towards some kind of normalization of relations with the Hermit Kingdom.  If such a sea change were to happen, our military presence in North Asia could and should be reduced substantially. This in itself is likely a flashing yellow light for those in the defense industry who profit from a continued state of high military readiness in the region not just those in Pyongyang but also our own in Washington.

No one, however, has ever satisfactorily explained to me the reasons for Pyongyang’s peculiar actions or what might induce its secretive leaders to change course.  In essence, the Hermit Kingdom has been brushed off as the proverbial enigma wrapped in a mystery - without further thought or examination.

Political Science 101

But put away the swords and the blinders for the moment and go back to the basics:  The first axiom of politics is a leader’s (or collective leadership’s) determination to remain in power.  That’s lesson one, political science 101.   In Pyongyang, the transfer of power is dynastic.  The country may call itself socialist, workers or communist but in reality it is governed through an age old form of familial leadership based on an historic Asian dynastic model.  Moreover, over the years, the North Korean dynasty has been propped up by the country’s military with China’s acquiesce and sometimes more.

I once had a Burmese cat named Cleo who spent the first two weeks of our assignment to Athens with her nose pointed into a back corner of a shelf in our bedroom closet.  I suppose she must have come out when no one was looking because she clearly used the litter box and ate her favorite food.  She ultimately resurfaced but only after we moved to a garden apartment which allowed her to explore the garden at will sitting for hours soaking up the Greek sun.

Fear of the unknown had much to do with Cleo’s behavior in that temporary apartment just as it’s plausible that fear of being dethroned (or possibly worse – think Ceaceşcu in December 1989) has been a likely motivating factor for North Korea’s seemingly irrational behavior since the country was established in the wake of the Korean War.  This flashed through my brain when one of the experts at the conference in describing the unique characteristics of the North Korean propaganda barrage pointed out that the country’s threats always concluded with the phrase: “if the Americans attack.”  But the speaker added that these four final words are not reported in the media or government statements we see in the West. 

The Householder’s Purse, a Legend of the Fall

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent 

10 April 2013.   As all the world already knows, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is dead.  Today, the Speaker recalled the House of Commons to special session to pay tribute to the late Prime Minister.  

It was in-of-itself a befittingly and ironically controversial decision. Each MP is now able to claim £3,750 in expenses they would not have been able to claim had the House of Commons only waited until Monday. The funeral isn’t until the 17th. Reputedly the Speaker balked at the idea.

Memories of a Legend  

As reflected in news coverage, the parties reportedly celebrating her death and the discussion in the Commons today, memories of the late Prime Minister’s career are as vivid and divisive today as Mrs. Thatcher was during her tenure as Prime Minister. Critics think Cameron seeks to milk Mother Margaret for all she's worth but if that's the idea it is a risky strategy.  Mother Margaret's fans don't always see Cameron as her heir, enemies do. Resurfacing the cult of Margaret Thatcher may well benefit UKIP and Labour far more than Cameron.

Margaret Thatcher the person will be missed by those who loved her.  But, some who claim to miss her now shunned her for years. As one friend, Lord Tebbit said today in the House of Lords that he regretted leaving his friend to her friends. She was swept from office not by the electorate but by her colleagues.  

Another Tory politician this week claimed Thatcher “had to break a few eggs” in reference to the shutting down or privatization of whole industries at a severe cost to those the industries employed. Presumably, this was “necessary” in order to make omelets for her friends. For me, I count relatives among the eggs she cracked for their omelet. But I don't want to be a hypocrite. I've broken eggs too.

Prime Minister Cameron says Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher saved the nation and made it "great" again.  One wonders about his definitions of save and great, but the verdict on the late Prime Minister now belongs to history and historians not politicians. Her legacy may well be written by China.  

Her least debatable impact may be as the person who most framed political and economic debate ever since. Perhaps the mark of her impact is, no opposition leader since has managed to escape that framework.  It is that framework that concerns me now.  

The Householder’s Handbag 

Margaret Thatcher famously "handbagged" Europe. She also handbags us today. George Osborne and David Cameron remain constrained by one PR gimmick in particular we owe to the late Prime Minister-- the Householder’s Purse analogy. “Any householder knows,” so the analogy goes, “you can’t spend money when there’s no money in the purse.”  It was the government’s mantra as it first sought to sell austerity to the public.

Living in Challenging Times: the US and East Asia

 

LIVING IN CHALLENGING TIMES: THE UNITED STATES & EAST ASIA
a two-day symposium

April 8-9, 2013
St. John’s College, Santa Fe, New Mexico

sponsored by

SANTA FE WORLD AFFAIRS FORUM
Co-sponsors: U.N.M. Center for Science, Technology & Policy
Albuquerque Committee on Foreign Relations, American Foreign Service Association & St. John’s College

DAY ONE:  2-6 pm: Registration; “East Asia and the Pacific:  Issues and Challenges,” Ambassador Will Itoh, Director, Washington International Programs, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Senior Advisor, McLarty Associates ; “North Asia and the Korea Conundrum,” Dr. Chris Nelson, Vice President of Samuels International, Washington, D.C.; Cocktail reception for speakers and Symposium participants.

DAY TWO: 9:15 am -4:00 pm: Registration; “China as a Rising Power Seeking its Rightful Place,” Dr. Suisheng Zhao, Director of the Center for U.S.-China Cooperation, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver; “The Chinese Military Machine,” Dennis Blasko, author “The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation” (Routledge 2012) and former US military attaché Beijing; talk on “Is the Myanmar Exuberance Irrational -- and whatever happened to Vietnam?,” Ms. Frances Zwenig, President, U.S.-ASEAN Business Council Institute, Inc.; wind-up panel.  Full buffet luncheon for speakers and Symposium participants.

All sessions will be followed by generous discussion periods.

PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS:  Friendship Force, Albuquerque Council on International Visitors, Public Diplomacy Alumni Association, University of New Mexico’s International Studies Institute, University of New Mexico’s National Security Studies Program, Public Diplomacy Council, Women’s Voices, American Association of University Women – Santa Fe Branch, & Fulbright Association of New Mexico.  

FEES & REGISTRATION: Both days: $70 members; $85 non-members; $30 students; 4/8 only: $40; 4/9 only: $50.  To reserve a place please e-mail waforum@gmail.com.  Symposium fees may be paid with your credit card using our Paypal account. You may access Paypal directly by clicking on this link or you may send your check to The Santa Fe World Affairs Forum, PO Box 31965, Santa Fe. NM, 87594, with your name and contact information, if you are not a member.  Checks should be made out to The Santa Fe World Affairs Forum.  Please note on your check that payment is for the April 2013 symposium.  Your payment guarantees you a place, but it is non-refundable after Wednesday, April 4, if you are unable to attend.

 

No Frames No Boundaries Revisited

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent 

I have vivid memories of the night of 13 December 1984.  On 13 December 1984 Beyond War and the USSR State Committee for Television and Radio jointly presented “Spacebridge."  

I was there.   

Spacebridge

A crisp clear night embraced San Francisco's Masonic Auditorium.  Inside, excitement built among the more than 3,000 attending.  Television would soon link us with Muscovites. We would see each other as we talked -Skype before Skype but on a mass scale.    

The occasion was the first annual “Beyond War Award,” presented that night to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.  Bernard Lown, MD and his Soviet counterpart, Evguenni Chazov, MD accepted on behalf of the organization.   

I belonged to Beyond War -- a movement birthed by Creative Initiative Foundation of Palo Alto (to which I also belonged). I had already volunteered over 20 hours per week for over a year by this time.  Less than 500 couples launched Beyond War at Stanford Chapel.  By 13 December 1984 the movement exceeded 20,000 committed participants.  

No Frames No Boundaries was Beyond War's video statement of faith. Rusty Schweickart's experiences in space, narrated by the former astronaut, play a pivotal role in the development of the video's theme.  

Beyond War as an organization may have differed somewhat from what you might expect. Many at the centre of the movement were Republican leaning businessmen and professionals.  The influence of Stanford University was omnipresent.  This was not a poor people’s movement. It was not a worker's movement. It was a Silicon Valley/ Bay Area movement.  

They were a high powered lot. Creative Initiative's revered founder had been a Stanford Law School professor. One member was a physician engaged in the joint US-USSR space medicine programme. Another was the "R" in ROLM Corporation. A third had been a White House fellow, an entrepreneur who retired in his early 30's.  A fourth had been counsel to the US Defense Department under President Ford. 

The event did not disappoint.   

Mel Swope, a well known Beyond War member, was Spacebridge's creative consultant. Dan Dippery, another member, directed audio visial.  Dippery had been Vice-President of Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborne.   

Bill Burch of “Fame” fame directed the music. Etta James performed an original song, “Beyond War,” she composed for the occasion. William Goldstein contributed an original musical score. Goldstein had previously composed the “Celebration Overture” for the National Symphony Orchestra’s US Bicentennial celebration at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Paul Winter and Paul Halley performed Winter’s beloved hymn, “The Blue-Green Hills of Earth,” from his famed “Missa Gaia/Earth Mass.”  The Gosteleradio Childrens Chorus of Moscow joined them, along with the San Francisco’s Boys Chorus.     

But the most moving bit had to be the Spacebridge itself.  

Sequester’s Silver Lining: Limits to Defense Spending

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Maybe there is a silver lining to the latest Washington impasse between the President and Congressional Republicans.  The sequester – which began this weekend - hasn’t yet caused the financial markets to behave like Pogo but such mindless budget cuts would - if allowed to bite deep into federal government services and support to the states and private sector are drastically diminished.

I remember the last government shutdown in a bitterly cold December when we were sent home early over the Christmas holidays, the National Parks and museums were closed and the passport office stopped issuing passports.  I also remember being one of the last people in my agency to leave the building – as it grew bitterly colder because the warmth of the humans who worked there and provided the heat were no longer there.      

By large measure, the majority of Americans blame the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, not the president, for the reductions that could take effect. And sequestration has become the flavor of this month’s news reporting and commentary especially inside the Beltway but also at places like Virginia’s Hampton Roads where much of the population is supported directly or indirectly by the military.

You’d think the Republican law makers (and breakers) would remember what happened to then House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s popularity after he challenged President Bill Clinton to a budgetary duel that December years ago. But I guess not.

This is largely a new crew that marches to its own ideological drum – led by chief drum major Grover Norquist, right wing radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh and other likeminded libertarians who think that government is an impediment to their pursuit of the all-mighty dollar and retention of their semi-automatics.        

But if sequestration does come to pass, it will finally dictate cuts to the bloated Pentagon which consumes a good 20 percent of this country’s expenditures.  The problem is that the cutbacks are across the board and will also hit far smaller peacetime agencies with even greater force because there’s less to cut. The so-called "entitlements", however, will apparently not be affected.

Perhaps a piece of the Republicans intransigence on defense spending is that they don't understand that the country’s first line of defense should be diplomacy not budget-busting tanks or expensive outdated weapons systems designed to challenge the invisible – far from invincible - Soviet battalions once-upon-a-time on alert at the Fulda Gap and, by-the-by, continue to enrich Lockheed-Martin and its myriad of subcontractors in the process. 

In contrast, all American diplomatic efforts – including foreign aid – come to no more that 2 percent of the national budget and the country’s diplomatic personnel totals less than all the musicians in US military bands combined.  This, in case anyone is interested, is a ratio of 20 to 2.

In an article in the January 28, 2013 New Yorker entitled “The Force: How Much Military is Enough?” Jill Lapore quotes President Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of this country’s greatest wartime generals.

Eisenhower warned in his first major speech as president which he delivered to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1953, that “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  This is a world in arms. This world is not spending money alone; it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. . . This is not a way of life in any true sense.  Under the clouds of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”