But what is the moral of the story of Obama’s theory mixing? Logical inconsistency? No, that the real world is significantly more complex than what either of those theories portrays it as, and that any government drawing on just one way of analyzing the world has a much smaller toolbox to choose from when trying to understand what’s going on and what to do about it.

Just having an American president that has relaxed the hardcore neo-Conservative thinking of the White House seems to me to be important enough for world peace to justify a Nobel Peace Prize all on its own, regardless of the greatness of his future achievements.

Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama is certainly an unexpected and interesting choice by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. On the one hand, awarding it to a person with a nine month history of involvement on the scene of international diplomacy may seem odd. On the other hand, awarding the prize based on work towards international diplomacy and multilateralism must be considered a return to the original intent expressed by Alfred Nobel in his will.

Some critics claim that awarding it to the man that advocated stepping up the military effort in Afghanistan is outrageous. Awarding the prize to someone who has shown himself willing to use military force is however nothing new. Theodore Roosevelt (1917), Henry Kissinger (1973) and Mikhail Gorbachev (1990) are examples of statesmen who aren’t remembered as always being soft when it came to the application of power.

More substantial is the criticism that Obama hasn’t actually achieved anything yet. He has been in office for 9 months. During this time he has taken many initiatives to promote multilateralism and change America’s position in the world, but he has yet to get any results. I can’t off the top of my head remember any laureate with so little to show for himself in terms of actual achievement. Still, the will of Alfred Nobel, the mandate of the prize, states that the Nobel Prizes should be given to: “…those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” Who did more during the last 12 months than Barack Obama?

For the peace prize specifically, it shall according to the will go to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Once again, it serves as a good description of Obama’s agenda, promoting the UN, promoting mulitlateralism in general and working for nuclear disarmament.

The comittee has been under a lot of fire in recent years for overstepping these bounds by laureates such as Wangari Maathai (2004), Mohammad Yunnus and Grameen Bank (2006) and Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007). With last year’s prize to Matti Ahtisari and this year’s to Barack Obama they have certainly returned to “the roots” with prices for traditional peace work by Nobel’s own definitions.

Lastly, awarding the prize to an active world leader with future achievements to make rather than in retrospect for past achievements may help the prize further in contributing to making actual peace in the world. Giving the prize to the person in the world best positioned to make actual progress on the matter may put additional pressure on the American president to deliver on his promises.

All in all I’m surprised at the award, but pleasantly so.

These figures are rather amazing. There seems to be only one country where the people don’t think Obama is more likely to do the right thing in international affairs – Israel. And the relationship between Israel and the US can hardly be said to be much like the relationship with any other country…

No reason has been given for the refusal, but I can hardly see how it can be a positive sign for the Sri Lanka situation.

Norway’s role as peace broker in Sri Lanka seems pretty much played out after Norwegian police failed to prevent damage to the Sri Lankan embassy in Oslo on the hands of Tamil protesters. The Sri Lankan government has reputedly declared Norway unwanted in the process.

But according to Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt’s blog, he is going to Sri Lanka to try and handle the humanitarian situation – together with French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and their British counterpart David Milliband. It’s a real show of force from EU to apply pressure on the parts of the conflict to refrain from further bloodshed. It may also be a sign that the EU is really serious about its role as a global peace broker with  a different focus than that of the US.

The Tamil Tigers (LTTE) have according to various media already asked for a cease fire, but the Sri Lankan government has rejected it, demanding a complete surrender.

Watchmen is one of the best graphic novels ever made, and according to Martin Seymour-Smiths’s The 100 most Influential Books ever Written[1] also among the most important books overall. It has received a lot of credit for along with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns being one of the works to reinvent the new adult style of comics. But in addition to being a story that changed the history of comics, it’s so much more than a super hero story that The Dark Knight Returns can never hope to come close to. It is also a story about the cold war and the madness of the nuclear arms race. My claim is that you could learn quite a bit of political science by reading it.

As a central thread throughout the book we’ve got the doomsday clock. This is a well-known symbol invented by the Bulletin of Nuclear Scientists in 1947. This clock counts the minutes until midnight as a symbol of how close the war is to nuclear holocaust. Throughout the cold war, the clock ticked towards midnight and away from it, being pulled back as far as 17 minutes from Midnight in 1991. Currently, however, the Bulletin has the clock as close as 5 minutes to midnight, placing us in the most dangerous age since 1984, about the time the Watchmen was written. The Bulletin’s current assesment is the following:

IT IS 5 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
2007: The world stands at the brink of a second nuclear age. The United States and Russia remain ready to stage a nuclear attack within minutes, North Korea conducts a nuclear test, and many in the international community worry that Iran plans to acquire the Bomb. Climate change also presents a dire challenge to humanity. Damage to ecosystems is already taking place; flooding, destructive storms, increased drought, and polar ice melt are causing loss of life and property. [2]

Throughout the book, the Watchmen uses the same device, dramatically accompanied by a gradually lowering sheet of blood. They start the clock at 11 minutes to midnight.

In Watchmen, the nuclear arms race kicks it up a notch with the introduction of the character Dr. Manhattan. In a very similar manner to how Dr. Bruce Banner becomes The Hulk, the nuclear scientist Jonathan Osterman is the victim of a nuclear accident, becoming Dr. Manhattan – a creature with the ability to reshape atoms, thereby also to work as a weapon far superior to the atomic bomb. After we get his story in chapter IV of the Watchmen, we get an exercept from a fictious scientific text by a Professor Milton Glass that reads like a Political Science text.

Professor Glass lays out to us the politics of the new American superweapon, Dr. Manhattan. He explains how he doesn’t think this American superweapon is “…a man to end wars. I believe that we have made a man to end worlds.” Watchmen, with the voice of Dr. Glass even manages to convey the subtle difference between Eisenhower and Dulles’ doctrine of “massive retaliation” (aka. “assured destruction”), and the later Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) most notably laid out as official US policy by Robert McNamara [3]. This was one of the core tenets of the real world Cold War realist thinking. It relies on the idea that as long as both Soviet and the USA were able to destroy each other simultaneously, neither would dare start a nuclear war and peace would be assured [4]. As the doomsday clock ticks towards midnight, Prof. Glass believes that the threat of ultimate domination that Dr. Manhattan poses might actually lead the Soviet regime to such desperation that they are willing to commit to such an attack even at the cost of lives they know will ensue.

If threatened with eventual domination, would the Soviets pursue this unequestionably suicidal course?  Yes. (Professor Milton Glass “Dr. Manhattan:  Super-Powers and the Superpowers” in Watchmen ch. IV)

Watchmen was first published in 1986-7, when the doomsday clock was ticking ominously close to midnight. In my opinion, it is an insightful work of fiction, extremely relevant to its time. The insight into the inherent self-destructiveness of hardcore realist thought, and the misguided American conceptions of Russian psychology still carry weight. And as the doomsday clock once again is less than 10 minutes from disaster and a more confident Russia once again flexes its claws, the importance of this lesson is growing in importance yet again.

Especially interesting in a modern light is the ending of the Watchmen. Not to ruin the excitement of the book for anyone whose interest I’ve peaked, I won’t go into detail on what happens, but we could draw a clear analogy to the World Trade Center incident on September 9, 2001. If the theory behind the ending of Watchmen was correct, we could expect the new threat of global terrorism make the great powers unite in peace and prosperity against this common enemy. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen with the growing conflict level under the Bush regime, a major terrorist action against New York just didn’t have this effect.

In conclusion I can say that Watchmen, in addition to being an exciting and different take on the concept of super heroes is also a thought provoking piece of fiction that could teach you a bit of political science along the way. I would advice everyone to pick up the novel, or at least watch the upcoming movie that’s due to get its cinema release in 2009.

Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[But who watches the watchmen?] (Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis “Juvenal” (approx. 100 CE) Satire VI)

References

1. Seymour-Smith, Martin (1998) 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press
2. http://www.thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/timeline
3. McNamara, Robert (1967) “‘Mutual Deterrence’ Speech by Sec. of Defense Robert McNamara” San Francisco, September 18, 1967, http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence/Deterrence.shtml
4. Kissinger, Henry (1994) Diplomacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, p.750-1

The myriad of opinions of great strength are confusing, and tell little but that each side has a lot of patriots willing to characterize the other in very strong terms. This suggests that the picture is most likely not as black and white as either side claims. Finding good balanced reports is not as easy, see the bottom of this post links to some of the better sources I have found – both strongly biased and not.

As I have formerly commented, I believe this conflict is a test of the new world order, in a way quite different from Iraq. Previously we saw a defeated Russia at the end of the cold war, a Russia in tatters and under Yeltsin a Russia that was succumbing to corruption and organized crime. Russia made careful advances towards becoming a part of the European community of nations, with the the scars of the cold war not yet healed, Europe wasn’t prepared to accept them.

Under Putin, however, Russia slowly turned around. Helped by skyrocketing oil prices and a huge demand for natural gas in Europe that has been filling Mother Russia’s coffers with gold, the urge and drive to once again become a great power has grown. And an introduction into Europe on uneven terms no longer seems as attractive.

In the last couple of years, Russia has faced what it could only see as a long series of insults from the west, which it has become harder and harder for a nationalist leadership to ignore. The western powers have taken the side of Kosovo against Russia’s old ally Serbia. The US rocket shield program with its placement of defense missiles in Eastern Europe has been another provocation. In diplomatic conflicts such as those between USA and Iran, Iraq and North Korea, Russia has used its power in the UN Security Council to resist the foreign policy of the Bush administration. But threats of military opposition have so far been more subdued. Clearly, the new Russia is weary of ending up seen as the constant threat to Western Europe and the US that the Soviet Union was. For all his self confidence, Putin knows that Russia doesn’t have the muscle to win another arms race. With a hand on the valves to Europe’s gas pipelines, Putin has finally got less drastic weapons to threaten with.

The Caucasus region is quite literally Russia’s back yard. It is an area with a history of ethnic violence between groups locked inside borders set by the result of wars and power politics. With Russian influence in Europe having been rolled back since the fall of the iron curtain, Russia needs to show that it is able to master this region, perhaps not on the scale the US exercises force in the rest of the world, but at least enough to be allowed to play in the same league.

The grievances of the Ossetians against the Georgians may or may not be legitimate. I do not know the area well enough to judge. Russia may have a humanitarian motivation to protect the Ossetians, but in the greater scheme, but at least it has been a coincidence giving Russia ab excellent excuse to establish a presence of force. By sending in a peacekeeping force (not by any mandate but that of the Kremlin), they could keep a military presence without provoking the western powers too much.

Then the Georgian offensive against the separatist republic started. Some claim it was a countermove to aggression from the separatists, some claim it was an unprovoked attempt at genocide. Either way, why it was ordered is somewhat of a puzzle to me. What did Georgia stand to gain? Surely, with Russian troops already on the ground in South Ossetia, they weren’t expecting Russia to stand idly by? And surely Georgia didn’t think they had the power to stand against the forces of the Kremlin on their own?

Unless, of course, Saakashvili has been overestimating the willingness of the West to stand face to face with Russia with guns in hand. If we rule out pure irrationality, the only sensible explanation I’ve been able to think of on my own is that the Georgian president somehow thought the NATO they’d been courting were already willing to back him with arms if he could provoke a Russian attack.

It doesn’t appear that they are. At least not right away. While Russian soldiers and materials seem (at least according to some accounts) to be pouring into South Ossetia, possibly even crossing the borders into Georgia proper, the response from the rest of the world is the request for talks and ceasefires, not the threat to send in armed force of their own.

Moving into pure speculation, what do I think will happen? At least I hope Russia will accept a ceasefire as sure as it has become clear that they would be able to crush Georgia if they wanted to. I believe there will be a period of negotiations facilitated by the UN, OSCE or EU in which some accord will be found. Some sort of extended autonomy for South Ossetia and their sister separatist republic Abkhasia will be guaranteed, if not letting them become a part of the Russian federation. Russia will have the diplomatic victory and demonstration of force it needs. I think Washington and Brussels also realizes that they need to let Russia have a victory, and here they can have one not at their expense. However, in doing so, they will have gone a long way in opening up for the old doctrines of “Spheres of Influence” that categorizes much of Realist thinking. This again opens up to the self fulfilling prophecies of a new cold war. If we have a president in Washington convinced that a cold war is coming, that belief alone is enough to make one. Hopefully we have learned enough from the old cold war that it won’t be quite as damaging.

But just maybe we do have a new world order that can stand up to the test. Perhaps we have learned so much from the old cold war that the great powers are willing to stand off and resolve conflicts in a new way? I am sure Robert Kagan for one would scoff at my naive beliefs, but I haven’t given up hope just yet….

Sources:

• “Russia-Georgia reaction: world leaders condemn Moscow” by Julian Cavendish, Times Online.
• “Russia as a Newborn Superpower: Putin as the Lord of Oil and Gas” by Vladimir Shlapentokh, Weltpolitik.net
• Interpress – the Georgian news agency.
• Georgia: War in South Ossetia – Global Voices Online
• International Crisis Group report and recommendations.
• “Why Can’t We Live Together?” by Joshua Kucera  from Slate.com
• “The North Caucasus: politics or war” by Thomas de Waal from Opendemocracy.net
• “Hastening the End of the Empire” (old) by John Kohan, Time Magazine
• “OCHA Situation Report, 23 September 2003” provided by Center for International Disaster Information
• “Russia and Georgia spar over South Ossetia, Abkhazia” by Sergei Blagov, Eurasia Insight

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Edit: Further sources:

• Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt’s blog (mostly in Swedish – some English).

So what are the implications of Russia bombing a “near-NATO-member”? Is this a direct military challenge to NATO? Or have Georgia blown their chances for good relations with NATO by escalating aggression with South Ossetia? European commentators have barely woken from their sleep, and have yet to get to their keyboards and radio microphones to let us know what this all means. But all the ingredients of an international relations crisis seem to be there…

US deputy secretaryof state, Dan Fried, says the following to Financial Times: “It appears that the South Ossetians have instigated this uptick in violence,” he said. “We have urged the Russians to urge their South Ossetian friends to pull back and show greater restraint. And we believe that the Russians are trying to do just that.” This doesn’t harmonize well with reports of russian bomber jets, volunteer troops and military supplies spilling over the border.

According to Reuters, the UN Security Council has been up all night discussing the matter, without reaching any conclusions but aggravating Russia further.

What do I think? I’m not an expert on this matter, or even on international relations at all. But I do notice one thing: an absence of the kind of confronational rhetoric categorizing the cold war. Admittedly, the big guys themselves haven’t started commenting yet, leaving the speaking to the diplomats. But that might also mean neither Moscow nor Washington are prepared to let this escalate into a major international crisis.

This is a test of the new world order after the Cold War, as fighting erupts on Russia’s doorstep. Let’s hope this won’t be proof of the new cold war neoconservative Robert Kagan claims is in the making. As yet it’s too early for an uninformed being to make predictions. I’m waiting for European and later American commentators to wake up and tell me what we can expect.