Integrate, Hedge, and Wait

The ever-insightful Matt Stone provides us with our first contribution to the debate amongst Oxford graduate students on what a post-Bush US grand strategy should look like, complete with a pithy title and a provocative, thoughtful, and incisive argument. Enjoy:

Integrate, Hedge, & Wait: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Post-George W. Bush Era

In geopolitical discourse, there is a common strand of thinking that identifies the Eurasian landmass as the centre of political competition between great powers. In 1904, the British geographer Halford Mackinder labelled it (in addition to Africa) the “World Island,” which, if dominated by any one power, would present a resource base of such proportions that no combination of other states could defeat it. In 1996, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former National Security Adviser to U.S. President Jimmy Carter, called the supercontinent a “grand chessboard,” on which the West – and in particular, the United States – should seek to expand Western influence through the spread of our ideals and norms. And, in the current decade, the geostrategic thinker Thomas P.M. Barnett has argued for a conceptualization of the world that bifurcates the globe into two camps: the integrating core and the non-integrating “gap.” The gap, naturally, covers most of Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Interestingly, Barnett (writing in 2004) included Russia and China in his integrating core, convinced at the time that both Eurasian powers were committed to a global order wherein the connectivity – and thus interdependence – between states would preclude the revival of great power competition.

In 2008, the two Eurasian powers demonstrated that their commitment to the norms and practices of a broadly Western world order was superficial at best. In August, Russia invaded neighbouring Georgia, incensed that the West would continue to “meddle” in its “backyard.” Earlier that year, the Economist quoted Russia’s Ambassador to NATO Dmitri Rogozin explaining Moscow’s antipathy toward the West’s actions in its “near abroad”: “We made peace with our neighbor. Then he says, 'Is it all right if I use your garage?' Then he says, 'Is it a problem if my friend lives in your place?' Then he says, 'Do you mind if I sleep with your wife?' When we protest, we are told we have no right of veto.” Of course, identifying the sovereign states bordering the Russian Federation as items of ownership – “your garage,” “your place,” and “your wife” – is more revealing of Russia’s own anachronistic mindset than it is of Western actions along its borders.

In March of 2008, protests erupted in Tibet and adjacent regions of China. The government in Beijing, exhorting the world community to respect its sovereignty within the territorial boundaries of its one-party state, cracked down harshly, ignoring pleas from the rest of the world – and the West in particular – to respect ephemeral principles like human rights. Naturally, the Chinese, worried for their territorial integrity and the demonstrative effect an autonomous Tibet would have on its restive Xinjiang province and Taiwan, paid no heed to human rights activists and developed world governments. China continues to participate in the global economy, not seeking to subvert a system from which it benefits, but its commitment to the principles and norms that underpin that system is increasingly questionable.

These two states – Russia and China – ought to be at the heart of Western foreign policy thinking in the next few decades: Russia because its activity threatens the European experiment with post-sovereignty; China because it stands to be the greatest geopolitical challenger to the West since the Soviet Union. Neither threatens to dominate Eurasia while they consolidate their territorial empires (the two Chechen wars being an indication of this in Russia, the repression and Sino-fying of Tibet and Xinjiang in China), but Western grand strategy ought to account for their growing estrangement with the norms and ideals that animate the Western world order.

I therefore propose the following inelegant formulation of Western grand strategy with regards to the two Eurasian powers: Integrate, Hedge, & Wait.

Integrate

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Clinton administration sought to enmesh the Russian Federation in a series of treaties and multilateral institutions, including arms control deals, the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, and membership in the OSCE and Council of Europe. However, Moscow perceived the expansion of NATO into Central and Eastern Europe as well as NATO intervention in Kosovo as a direct threat to its national security and has since fallen away from the West. The Bush administration sought to make China a “global stakeholder,” but it let its East Asia policy be driven too much by the U.S.-Japan alliance, which managed to alienate both Beijing and Seoul. American military bases in Central Asia also unnecessarily pushed China and Russia together in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Integration should be more nuanced.

The West ought to tip its hat – rhetorically and substantively – to integrating both powers into the global economic order while respecting their territorial sovereignty. For instance, a dedicated push for Russian accession to the WTO (which hinges on the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment in the U.S. Congress) would do more to grow a domestic constituency for integration than the current drift in Russia-Western relations. As to China, engaging on areas of mutual concern like energy security, nuclear non-proliferation, and economic openness would continue the construction of business-like relations between Beijing and Washington. The relocation of a few UN agencies from Geneva to Hong Kong would also have useful symbolism.

The goal is to see both Russia and China succeed economically on terms that do not threaten the West.

Hedge

What happens if integration doesn’t bring the supposed benefits or happens at too slow a pace to prevent a xenophobic Russia from invading another neighbour or a nationalistic China from striking at Taiwan? Geopolitical coalitions in a state-based system may seem a thing of the past, but they are still an important instrument for shaping behaviour in Eurasia. Two coalitions in particular are critical to the hedging element of this grand strategy.

The first is the Atlantic alliance – NATO – and its promise of keeping a Europe dabbling in post-sovereignty (Robert Cooper’s post-modern Europe) safe from the increasingly belligerent rhetoric and policy coming out of Moscow. Renewing this alliance is critical not only for European security but also for protecting the genesis of a new conception of public order that has already had a stabilizing effect on world politics (look to the growing number of regional organizations – the African Union, Mercosur, ECOWAS, ASEAN, etc. – that are inspired by the European Union’s success).

The second is the United States’ growing web of alliances and partnerships in South and East Asia. The U.S.-Japan alliance is a keystone in the balance of power of Northeast Asia, but American relationships with Australia and Indonesia are also critical. The most important recent development is the growing partnership between the United States and India, which offers yet another important hedge against potential Chinese opportunism. There are strong constituencies in both the United States and India for the expansion of this partnership, perhaps short of an outright alliance, which will continue to factor into Beijing’s geopolitical calculations.

Hedging is about shaping behaviours. It is not about defeating potential adversaries, but rather, preparing for the distant eventuality that a potential adversary may attempt to alter the status quo through strength of arms. A credible partnership between two strong states (or a group of states, as with NATO) changes the calculations of political elites in potentially adversarial countries, buying time for the integration strategy to change the balance of incentives between cooperation and confrontation.

Wait

Since both China and Russia are territorial empires, neither country is sustainable in its current form. China is a one-party state attempting to transition to a stable political and economic order while facing massive social dislocation and multiple separatist pressures. Russia is an increasingly authoritarian country that spans eleven time zones with separatist pressures and an unhelpful demographic profile – a shrinking Russian Orthodox population and a burgeoning Muslim one. Neither is internally coherent. Neither offers an ideological prescription that animates the imaginations of large populations elsewhere in the world, let alone its own: Russia’s petroleum-fuelled authoritarian capitalism excites some Central Asian leaders, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales; China’s one-party market state excites Singapore’s government and a raft of other authoritarians at best. Neither offers an alternative to Western democratic capitalism, merely variations on that theme.

However, the internal coherence of Western values like respect for the individual, economic and political liberty, and the rule of law makes them highly attractive to vast populations, including apparently many Russians and Chinese, as long as they are not imposed through strength of arms. The success of many of these values has been witnessed in diverse societies and cultures like Japan, South Korea, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Chile, South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, India, and elsewhere to a greater or lesser extent. There is nothing that suggests Western values are territorially and/or culturally exclusive.

The strategy of waiting recognizes that Western values have the strongest normative force in international affairs today. Waiting also suggests that the West is not directly threatened by Russia or China but must exercise prudence while both societies evolve. Three outcomes may obtain.

• The first is that Russia and/or China collapses due to its internal contradictions: a market-based economy grafted on a centralized, bureaucratized, authoritarian government. This would have terrible consequences for global stability and for the West in general. No Western government should wish this upon either country. The strategy of integration is meant to prevent this scenario by helping the two countries’ economies grow.

• The second is that Russia and/or China seeks to put off reform of their societies and redirect their public’s frustration toward external goals, probably accompanied by war. This is not an uncommon feature of international relations. The strategy of hedging is intended to preclude the development of external aggression as a safety valve for domestic disquiet.

• The third is that Russia and/or China addresses their internal contradictions by gradually adopting a more coherent political-economic system, broadly in conformity with the spirit of Western norms of governance. This would likely occur in conjunction with multinational integration and the economic growth obtained therefrom. This is the ideal scenario.

In the final analysis, the grand strategy outlined above is a mixture of carrots (integrate), sticks (hedge), and patience (wait), the last of which is too often in short supply in Western democracies. The intention is to make the path toward economic and political integration with the West the least problematic for Beijing and Moscow. It is meant to shape behaviours in ways that benefit the West, but more importantly, benefit the populations of China and Russia that deserve to live in societies where the individual is not only protected by the state, but protected from the state.

Matt Stone is an MSc candidate in Global Governance & Diplomacy at St Antony’s College, Oxford University. He is writing his master’s thesis on the multilateral governance of the global oil trade.

'Trafficked Men as Unwilling Victims': A Reply

By ELISABETH BECKER

Rebecca Surtees’s article, ‘Trafficked Men as Unwilling Victims,’ STAIR vol. 4, no. 1, 2008: 16-36, raises a variety of interesting points regarding the roles of discourse and gender in human trafficking. In concurrently addressing these spheres of understanding, it challenges the central paradigms that we employ both to understand and explain the complexities inherent to this phenomenon. Surtees is able to incorporate and yet rise above generalizations intrinsic to any mainstream theory of human trafficking, specifically, or forced migration, more generally. The following discussion seeks to draw out questions and points of contention within this complex and multifaceted discussion, by focusing on the links between gender, discourse and identification.

The role of gender is an important and yet understudied aspect of human trafficking. Surtees is correct in asserting that women and children are the focus of literature regarding, and responsive resources to, trafficking. Surtees, however, herself addresses the experience of men and women in significantly divergent ways. While she gives weight to the ‘hegemonic masculinity’ that may impede or impair trafficked men in seeking support, she undermines the strength of ‘hegemonic femininity’—the social and familial constructs specific to women’s position in society. Surtees is right in asserting that men, owing to their own and their societies’ conceptions of masculinity, may inhibit their access to response structures. I would ascend this assumption, however, to raise two questions: 1) Are women and children not specifically targeted since they are at the very least perceived as ‘weak’ and ‘vulnerable’? and 2) Are women not also agents who may reject classification as ‘victim’ or ‘vulnerable’ and therefore not seek support?

This second question links to the role of discourse, and more specifically, that of rhetoric in human trafficking. Not only the general frameworks, but the specific linguistics employed, affect the consequences of trafficking. ‘Vulnerability’ is a rhetoric common to the international refugee and aid regimes, as a whole. However, as Oliver Bakewell underscores in his literature, the word ‘vulnerable’ is problematic for all forced migrants. ‘With regards to trafficking and the dilemmas that Surtees unfolds, I would suggest the following: instead of attempting to understand men, women and children as concurrently ‘vulnerable,’ recognizing the agency of men, women and children is imperative. States, trafficking response agencies and academics must understand that support structures should draw on and incorporate this agency, while simultaneously responding to the needs of trafficking victims.

In incorporating and responding to these needs, it is important to understand the role of identification. To use the terminology of Roger Zetter, trafficking victims not only label themselves, but are concurrently labeled by states (both those sending and those receiving migrants) and agencies. Surtees highlights that a central problem in this identification is that circumstances, rather than individuals, may serve to coerce victims. I find this to be a problematic point and one in need of a much more detailed explanation. If this holds true, how can trafficking victims be decoupled from economic migrants? Are not the vast majority of economic migrants ‘forced’ by their circumstances to migrate? What criteria, in general, must be fulfilled to be considered a trafficking victim and who is responsible for identifying these individuals?

A central question remains for me after reading and responding to Surtees’ article and in regards to gender, discourse and identification: How can these layers of labels—rhetorical, self and imposed—be reconciled in a way that guarantees greater support to the trafficked?

Elisabeth Becker is the managing director of St. Antony's International Review.

Obama's First 24 Hours: A British Perspective

Contributing to STAIR-STEPS' forum on President Obama's first 24 hours, Rory Brown, a master's student in diplomacy at Oxford, offers this take:

President Obama should do the following, in the order they appear:

1. Declare that his two top priorities in the Middle East are:

a) to seek to secure a resolution to the Middle East peace process, or at least the perception of a reasonably just solution in the Arab street; and

b) to seek to create a regional coalition that brings regional stakeholders in on efforts to successfully stabilise and reconstruct Iraq and Afghanistan, including adversaries like Iran.

2. Announce a commitment to leadership on international climate change mitigation andadaptation efforts – through binding commitments and major green-friendly reorganisationof the US economy and energy systems – that is ambitious and magnanimous enough to allow the US to:

a) persuade China to be the 'responsible stakeholder' that it aspires to be, by being a joint environmental leader with the US (without it feeling that its development is being unfairly stifled),

b) create green-friendly competition with Europe in markets for renewable energy and clean technologies, and

c) invigorate the international environmental negotiation process to raise its chances of staving off dangerous climate change.

3. Declare his desire to see the G8 doubled in members, to bring in key future strategic partners into an inclusive and representative yet not unwieldy global consultation process, with countries such as Saudi Arabia, India, South Africa, China, Brazil and others brought on board.

4. Begin to privately lay the groundwork for the establishment of a new civilian intergovernmental agency mandated to engage in international crisis management and statebuilding/reconstruction. It should employ specialists across a range of fields, from lawyers, agronomists and environmental scientists to engineers, anthropologists, economists and political scientists.

President Obama should consult with other major powers on its establishment, potentially within the framework of a G16, so that from the very beginning it is a multilateral effort ,although the United States should initially lead in its establishment, its funding and the sourcing of its specialists, to give it impetus. This would demonstrate commitment to humanitarian causes and combatting environmental disasters, the number of which are likely to only increase, whilst also cleansing humanitarianism from the stench of militarism it hashad during the Bush administration.

5. Begin to privately lay plans for 2 investigations:

a) into the events surrounding 9/11, because large minorities, and in some casesmajorities, of people in countries outside the west believe that elements of the US government were complicit in the attacks, a view we should not discount because of our disgust with it;

b) into the domestic causes of the Iraq war.

Each should be publicly announced only once the majority of US troops have withdrawn from, or are reasonably safe in, the region.

24 Hours Is Just Enough Time To...

What should Barack Obama do in his first 24 hours in the Oval Office? St. Antony's International Review has some recommendations for the 44th president-elect:

-Chris Oates says Obama should stock the State and Defense departments with experts from both parties.

-Matt Stone says he should announce a trip to China and forge ahead on free-trade pacts with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama.

-David Louk says that Obama should scrap the global gag rule and let 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' die.

-Zachary Manfredi says that the first 24 hours are a perfect time to close Guantanamo Bay.

-Daniel Hemel says Obama should ease the embargo on Cuba and pour a round of rum, coke, and lime for his aides.

-Omar Bashir says he should quote Muhammad in his inaugural address and appeal to the Islamic just war tradition.

Our Comments sections are open. What's your advice for the next leader of the free world?

And join our forum on the logic of British appeasement in the 1930s here.

Just War Is Not Just Judeo-Christian

By OMAR BASHIR

In this entry, I'd like to illuminate the possibilities of a new rhetorical approach to dealing with the Muslim world. President-elect Obama may not go down this path in the inauguration address. But the extent to which Muslims abroad as well as at home are increasingly swayed by the view that the US is carrying out a `war on Islam and Muslims' means that the new administration cannot remain silent on this issue for long.

Too often, American actions and words to Muslim states are viewed on a spectrum that extends between friendliness and enmity. For the Bush administration, improving relations with the Muslim world meant stating plainly in speeches that `Islam is a religion of peace'. That this has become a punch-line is not surprising. Regardless of the theological truth or untruth of such statements, the instability and atrocities occurring in many parts of the Muslim world make it difficult to accept such claims. And, aside from igniting cynicism here at home, superficial rhetoric does little to convince Muslims that the US has noble intentions.

If Obama wants to change perceptions of the US through rhetoric, he must do so in the language of those who perceive. Appeals to notions like `freedom' to justify anti-terror actions may resonate with an American audience, but something else is necessary to cause cognitive dissonance in the minds of Muslims who already espouse vague yet intense anti-American sentiments.

The solution is not to modify tone to be more or less conciliatory. Rather, it is to make use of Islamic ideals to counter the ideology of Muslim belligerents. This may sound exotic, but the similarity of Western and Islamic just war traditions, for instance, gives Obama the opportunity to criticize the targeting of civilians while appealing to non-Muslim Americans as well as to Muslims at home and overseas. The racist statements about Obama's role in American politics released by some Islamist groups are ripe for this sort of rhetorical strategy. Imagine an American president quoting Muhammad's famous last sermon to remind them that `a white person has no superiority over a black one, nor does a black person have any superiority over a white one except by piety and good action'.

It is possible that some may counter accusations that extremists have departed from Islamic just war traditions with accusations of their own regarding American jus ad bellum or jus in bello violations. This surely calls for care in choosing words and admitting mistakes. But any demonstration of an understanding of Islamic ideals that goes beyond the superficial will be powerful and, hopefully, politically bearable.

If this sort of strategy is not workable, then the very least that Obama must try is to convince Muslims abroad that the US has serious security interests in Iraq, Afghanistan, and northwest Pakistan. He must, for example, actively counter discourse that suggests the US wants an unstable or dismembered Pakistan because it is a nuclear-armed Muslim state. Otherwise, the door is open for belligerent Islamists to continue spouting their own conspiracy theories in an effort to cast America's actions as being part of a larger `war on Islam'.

Omar Bashir is an M.Phil candidate in International Relations at Oxford. He is writing his master’s thesis on Islamism and Pakistani foreign policy.

¡Cuba Libre!

By DANIEL HEMEL

President John F. Kennedy called his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, into the Oval Office in February 1962 and ordered Salinger to scrounge up 1,000 Cuban cigars by the next morning. Twenty-four hours later, the president summoned Salinger again. The press secretary reported that his mission was accomplished: Salinger had acquired 1,200 H. Upmann Petit Coronas -- Kennedy’s favorite brand. Upon hearing that news, Kennedy handed Salinger an executive order imposing an embargo on Cuban goods. The embargo has been in place ever since.

It might be awhile before Barack Obama can puff on an H. Upmann in his Oval Office swivel-chair. (Obama has had a long-time smoking habit, and there is quite a bit of speculation in the US media as to whether he has quit tobacco.) Under the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, the president can suspend the economic embargo of Cuba if -- and only if -- he determines that a “transition government” (or a full-fledged “democratically elected” one) has taken power on the island. And Section 205(a)(7) of the act defines a transition government as one that -- among other things -- “does not include Fidel Castro or Raul Castro.” So don’t light up just yet.

But come 20 January, President Obama can reverse the Bush administration’s 2004 decision to tighten restrictions on travel to Cuba. That decision set draconian limits on visits by Cuban-Americans to family members still living on the island. Under the Bush decree, a Cuban-American can only visit a parent, child, or spouse once every three years -- and only for 14 days at a time. (The previous rule had allowed for annual visits.)

President Obama can also liberalize laws that prevent the free exchange of ideas between Cuban and American academics. He can order the State Department to grant visas so that Cuban professors can attend conferences at US universities, and he can lift restrictions that prevent US scholars from guest-lecturing at Cuban institutions. He can reinstate licenses for US high school students to travel to Cuba for educational purposes, and he can ease rules that make it extraordinarily difficult for US undergraduates to enroll in study-abroad programs there.

Forty-six years of US sanctions against Cuba have made it harder for families to stay together. US sanctions have made it harder for American academics to exchange ideas (including ideas about democracy) with Cuban colleagues. But US sanctions haven’t made it harder for the Castro brothers to remain in power (and, by limiting the free flow of ideas, sanctions might have made it easier for Fidel and Raul to retain control).

So on Night One of the Obama Era, the president should summon his press secretary -- and his other top advisers -- to the Oval Office and order an immediate reversal of the Bush administration restrictions on travel to Cuba. Then he should check his desk drawer to see if any of JFK’s Upmann Petits are still in stock -- and if they’re not, he should pour a round of Cuba Libres for his aides.

Daniel Hemel is an M.Phil candidate in International Relations at Oxford. He is writing his master's thesis on global financial regulation.

Gitmo No More

By ZACHARY MANFREDI

In order to restore the severely eroded human rights credibility of the US, President Barack Obama should move swiftly and carefully to close Guantanamo Bay. Criticisms of the ‘detention center’—a rather anesthetized euphemism for “prison camp”—have mounted over the past seven years; the UN, EU, and many NGOs have now joined in a unified chorus calling for closure of the prison. The record of documented prisoner abuses, including sensory deprivation, forced shaving, stripping, and 20 hour interrogations, have called some international and domestic observers to mount charges of “torture” against the Bush administration. Moreover, the denial of habeas corpus and the attempt to undermine the overall authority of international law through the use of “black sites” has only cemented the dangerous perception that the US commitment to human rights is one of convenience rather than principle.

With 250 prisoner still detained, over 200 of whom have not been formally charged with any crime, the US faces a extreme difficulty in both promoting the rule of law abroad and serving as a credible negotiator in conflict situations. While the recent decision by the Federal District Court in Washington DC to free five Algerian men held illegally in Guantanamo will help to restore some American credibility, more action is required. Obama should issue an executive order to move the prisoners from Guanantanmo to either a holding facility within the Continental United States or another US territory that clearly falls under the jurisdiction of US and international law. Obama has a number of options, ranging from court-martial trials to trial of the detainees in US federal courts. Regardless of the particular strategy the Obama administration adopts, the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay must either be charged with crimes, and if charged afforded all the rights of prisoners of war as specified under the Geneva Conventions, or released. Anything short of a sincere and direct effort to close down the camp and subject the detainees to the rule of law will fail to halt the blood-letting of US credibility and legitimacy.

Zachary Manfredi is an M.Phil candidate in Political Theory at Oxford. He is writing his master's thesis on the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Bag the Gag Rule; Back New Stem Cell Lines; and Let DADT Die

By DAVID LOUK

In his first 24-hours, President-elect Obama will have the opportunity to steer the political discourse of his first 100 days. I believe he could demonstrate the tone of his administration’s foreign policy platform by overturning several Bush Administration executive orders on family planning funding and stem cell research in his first day in office, as well as declaring his intention to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba military detention center and permit gays and lesbians to serve openly in the armed services.

First, President-elect Obama should overturn the ban on abortion and abortion-related services to NGOs receiving federal State Department funding for their work overseas. Known as the Mexico City Policy or the Global Gag Rule, this executive order effectively limits the ability for aid organizations to provide contraception and other critical family planning information. (For more on the Gag Rule, check out Population Action and the Global Gag Rule Impact Project.)

Second, the ban on new stem cell lines decreed by a 2001 executive order by President Bush should be reversed. This executive order effectively limits all federally-funded stem cell research to the 60 embryonic stem cells lines already derived. This greatly limits researchers’ ability to derive potential cures from the lines, in part because many people will not be genetically compatible with these lines. Allowing scientists to create new stem cell lines could greatly enhance their ability to develop treatments for cancers, as well as a number of degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s. Reversing the ban sends a strong message to the global community that the US will be a leader on research and development for curative medicine.

Third, President-elect Obama should declare his intention to seek a statute to endorse military service for openly gay officers in the armed services, overturning the “don’t ask, don’ tell” policy that has been in place since the Clinton administration. Although such a declaration might conjure déjà-vu for President Clinton’s loss of political capital in the aftermath of his intention to permit open service in 1993, the United States has changed dramatically in the past 16 years. Gays and lesbians now have the right to marry in two US states and have access to domestic partnerships in several others, and a broad majority of Americans support open service. More importantly, US troops are involved in two major combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the US armed services have repeatedly failed to meet basic recruiting quotas. Refusing the services of proud Americans willing to die on behalf of their country is not only close-minded, given US military commitments overseas, it is downright foolish (and, for that matter, unpopular).

Finally, President-elect Obama should signal a broad shift in US war on terror policies by declaring his intention to close the Guantanamo Bay military compound as a site for the detention of US military captives. The treatment of detainees at Guantanamo has eroded US international standing as a leader in upholding fundamental human rights enshrined in The Hague and Geneva Conventions. While the treatment of enemy combatants is a complicated question with no easy answers, the indeterminate holding of detainees in Cuba undermines US credibility in its operation of the war on terror while creating a black hole that appears to be beyond the reach of international law.

David Louk is an M.Phil candidate in International Relations at Oxford. He is writing his master's thesis on the Bush administration, sovereignty, and human rights.