Asian Security in the New Millennium The Global Security Context Queens' College Cambridge - 1 September 1999
Looking at the programme for the next two days, we have the promise of an extraordinary conference with the key issues of Asian security being addressed by speakers of great expertise. Philip gave me a completely free hand in terms of what I should focus on this pre-conference session. There is of course a temptation to try to cover everything in just 30 minutes. We meet at a time when three of the regular Asian security issues, which bubble up from time to time, seem set to reach the boil together. Taiwan, North Korea and Kashmir are all in the news with sporadic, but perhaps increasing, confrontation between their main players. Each of the potential conflicts have a nuclear dimension which makes for added concern.. However, we shall undoubtedly discuss those in detail over the next couple of days. It seemed to me that rather than trespass on the grounds of our expert speakers, I might try to set the global security context as I see it for the coming years. We are able to dimly see a new pattern of international affairs emerging, which may in the end prove to be a footnote in history, or, as I shall argue, a watershed. This will have a profound effect on the importance of Asian affairs to the peace and security of the rest of the World.
Looking to the future is always a somewhat hazardous affair. We extrapolate from recent experience into the unknown, often coming to quite incorrect conclusions. So perhaps what I am going to say should be seen as merely one possible future, and like all security specialists, there may be a touch of worst case analysis, so that we can prepare and prevent it coming to pass. Through recent years, we have seen many predictions of the rise of Asia as an economic power, coupled with a possible decline in Europe and North America. Before that, through much of the Cold War, we at times seem to think that Communism was unstoppable except by military means. That developing countries would fall like dominoes if not afforded the protection of the West. Sometimes, we see similar views being expressed with Islam replacing communism as the unstoppable ideology. Yet the experience of the almost simultaneous widespread death of ideological communism at the end of the 80s, coupled with the fall of Asian markets in the 90s have together given rise to an equally dangerous presumption. There is currently a complacency in some parts of America and Europe that liberal democracies and market forces are the unstoppable models which will spread peace, harmony and wealth throughout the globe. We may all hope that this will be the case, but it is not yet proven.
The 90s have been an interesting decade. The end of the Cold War, the reunification of Germany, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, and the accession this year of Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary into NATO have completely transformed Europe's security. It might have been assumed that the disappearance of a real and urgent military threat from the Soviet Union would have decreased the military activity of western European nations. Yet European armed forces have been engaged in more real military operations in this decade than they were in the four decades of the Cold War. It is as though the Cold War gave western democracies an excuse for inaction. The Gulf War of 1991 set the new agenda for the international community. That it was possible to assemble so many participating nations into the ad hoc coalition was of course made easier by the obvious breach in international law of the invasion of Kuwait. The success of the Gulf War boosted the confidence of the international community, that it could right international wrongs. The break-up of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia has not yet finished. Nevertheless Bosnia and Kosovo have further reinforced a US/European view of how instability can be contained. The threat and, if necessary, use of force is now less constrained if the aims of the operation are judged by the major western powers to be the promoting of justice for individuals. The previous embargo on intervention in the internal affairs of states has been lifted.
In the UK, our newly elected government in 1997 astonished many by announcing that foreign policy would have an ethical dimension. Britain had always been seen as essentially a pragmatic operator on the international scene. Foreign policy was the promotion of national interest by diplomatic effort with few absolutes. As with many of its policies New Labour was in tune with the times. Kosovo was a humanitarian intervention. A number of speakers for the far Left and the far Right have pointed out, there was no direct national interest in the internal arrangements of Kosovo. Such voices were in the minority. Humanitarian action has been cited in the past as a justification for military action, but usually in retrospect or in concert with more traditional justifications of vital interests. Kosovo was different. With a pretty arguable UN authority, NATO nations undertook an air campaign with a stated humanitarian aim.
There are other straws in the wind. The establishment of the International Criminal Court is one. The indictment of General Pinochet is another. The steady arrest of people for war crimes in Bosnia is a third. I may seem to be drifting from the subject of our conference. What have these events to do with Asian security? I would argue that this is the start of a new dimension to international relations which will have implications for global security. It is of course possible to argue that none of this is new. Indeed the protection of human rights is fundamental to the United Nations. That may be true in treaty language, but the reality has been far short of it over the years. The first change for the new millennium may then be a much greater emphasis on human and individual rights by the major democratic powers. If this is so, then there are some fairly major implications for how we deal with a number of places in Asia - not least China, but I shall return to this in a moment.
Economic
The next big question which affects security is the economic one. We seem for the moment to have survived the Asian markets crisis with confidence on the mend. Yet economic issues shape our security thinking. The moves we are making in Europe towards an integrated economic structure are inevitably leading to debate on the next stage of foreign policy and security integration. Our economic competition with the US, and of course the Asian competition with the US, will have implications for the military support that we can both (Europe and Asia) expect in the future from America. The economy of Russia is a security issue for us in Europe as it is for Asia. Most of all the economic success of the US is a key to the sort of world we can expect. There is no reason to assume that the US has managed to break out of the cycles of growth and depression, however much the investment analysts might want to believe it. The internet stocks of today are the tulips or south sea investment opportunities of yesterday.
Global markets give a global interdependence. Again economists are still arguing whether this gives the global economy a new robustness or a new vulnerability. The rapid recovery of the Asian markets is seen as a sign of the benefits of global markets - but there are those that would argue that the current recovery has slowed the market reforms that were needed in Asia in general, and Japan in particular, thus setting the world up for a deeper depression when the next fall comes. What no one disputes is the importance of Asian economies to the world and also to the security picture for the future.
Population
India passed the one billion people mark sometime last month. With China, it represents a third of the world's population. Growth rates are declining everywhere, yet for the developing world they remain positive. The world's population looks set to stabilise and even start to decline by the end of the next century, but in the meantime there will have been some significant demographic changes. India will probably become the most populous country around 2030. The European countries may be having a different sort of population crisis if they continue to have negative growth rates. The divided between rich and poor states may be magnified by these differential population growth rates. All of these strains, with their security implications may be further exacerbated by environmental problems.
Environment, Resources & Energy
Environmental issues are becoming a growing part of the wider definition of security. Global warming may effect available land in places like Bangladesh. It may affect food availability in developing countries more adversely. Pollution of air or water can become a threat to neighbours. The forest fires of Indonesia hardly help relations with its neighbours, but may also have wider implications for the atmosphere - as is of course also the case with the Brazilian rain forests. We have seen that industrial fishing can take fish stocks below the level of viability. The Labrador fisheries are now dead. Again this can be a source for conflict. The intensity of commercial operations, the need for fresh water, the growing populations and the need to raise living standards are problems which come together across much of Asia.
It will not be possible for the rich nations to hold back the aspirations of the poor nations. Yet the consequences in terms of just energy requirements are of great concern. We shall need to look at ways of providing the necessary energy without the burning of carbon - and that probably means a renaissance of nuclear energy, which brings with another series of potential problems.
Technology
Technology is seen as the answer to many of these problems. The connected world has fuelled the aspirations of individuals. It may be that television contributed to the end of the Soviet Union. Certainly the worldwide information networks now make it increasingly difficult for totalitarian regimes to hide the truth from their peoples. Biotechnology may certainly offer hope in terms of combating disease and increasing food supplies, but it has a black side as well. Technology is offering poor states and non State actors new opportunities for weapons that can threaten the vital interests of major nations.
WMD
That brings me back to my opening remarks about the three areas of potential conflict. India and Pakistan have been nuclear weapon states for a long time, but neither had previously felt it necessary to declare themselves as such. The optimist would argue that they have improved deterrence by their tests; the pessimists would say that they are their systems are not well controlled and a nuclear war has become more likely. North Korea has been working hard to achieve a nuclear capability. It has almost certainly a biological and chemical capability, and the targets in South Korea are not difficult to reach. Of great concern has been its involvement of Japan by testing its new missiles in that direction. Japan must be feeling increasingly beleaguered with this, with its internal WMD developing group who used sarin gas in the Tokyo underground. The group had also tried to get samples of the ebola virus for biological attacks. It will also worry about the China - Taiwan situation.
It appears that China is having a considerable internal debate over how to handle Taiwan. If it were to attack, it would place not just the United States but also Europe in a very interesting position. The states that came together to throw Iraq out of Kuwait are also largely the same states that went to war in Kosovo for human rights. Taiwan is a vibrant democratic place with a great deal of commercial activity in America and Europe. China continues to fall far short of the norms of human rights that the world community now expects. It is difficult to see how the states who fought for the Kosovar Albanians could stand by and watch the military conquest of Taiwan. The consequences of such a confrontation are incalculable.
China
Indeed in any look to the future the developments in China are key. The West often seems to work on the principle of hope rather than realism. We are in a difficult period at the moment where the US is becoming more cautious in its relationships with China, and China is flexing its muscles. Whether, this can be made even more difficult by a warming of Sino-Russian relationships is questionable. We should not forget that whatever their economic situation both remain nuclear powers.
Conclusion
In any look at the future of global security, there are two major unknowns: China and America. How each of these key states evolve will determine the way the world is. Perhaps the lesson for the European states is that they must work together as a region if they are to have any chance in influencing the future international scene. Europe will be more populous than the US, more wealthy than either the US or China, but is pathetically weaker in foreign and security policy and unity of view over its vital interests. I look forward greatly to hearing from all the expertise that we have assembled here at Queen's to answer some of these questions.