The 21st century's major challenges, according to Ephraim Halevy.
By EPHRAIM HALEVYahmadinejad 63(photo credit: )
A unique combination of unprecedented factors on the international and regional scenes is rapidly changing the rules, the capabilities, the threats and the challenges facing us.
First, the race between military nuclearization of the globe and its effective prevention is gaining momentum. None other than Henry Kissinger has defined a nuclearized world as uncontrollable. Hence this must be prevented at all cost.
All cost? Three recent challenges have been treated in different ways. North Korea has been brutally pressured economically and has twice made a deal with the United States, and twice been caught cheating on its implementation. Iran has been cajoled and engaged in fruitless negotiations and is being threatened with military action, so far to no avail. And Syria has been subjected to surgical military action, the outcome of which is still unclear.
The necessity to create a system, to fashion a regime of mutual coexistence in a crowded nuclear environment or to produce an effective method to prevent proliferation will be a major feature of this century. This is most urgent because nuclear capability is due to become cheaper, more accessible and ever more miniaturized and mobile. No progress has, so far, been registered.
Second, the international system will have to address the growing phenomenon of non-state players - terrorist movements with global reach, or regional groups with strong impacts on global interests, including such as aspire to and may even obtain non-conventional weaponry. Hamas in the Middle East and the Taliban and its related allies in Pakistan in the Indian nuclearized subcontinent, are only two of such key cases. It will be necessary to devise a variety of policies and strategies to deal with these non-state phenomena. The employment of brute force will not always be effective or wise.
Third, the nature of the threats - some distastefully label them "existential" - is forcing changes in security and defense doctrine. Inter alia, no state or non-state will be able to create a protective shield that will operate solely within its borders. The nature of attack and delivery systems, incrementally ballistic and long range, will dictate increasingly global responses to threats; thus, 9/11 on the American continent elicited long-term responses in the heartlands of Asia and the Middle East. More and more players will become global, and the influences between big and smaller players will be increasingly reciprocal. The global village in economy, business and trade is being joined by the global village in the fields of defense and security.
Fourthly, the rules and norms of conflict will be fast changing. Traditional laws and conventions in international law are becoming and will increasingly become irrelevant and obsolete, entirely divorced from reality, and it will become urgent to rewrite the rules of combat so they relate to new means of combat, to revolutionary stakes at hand. The rights and wrongs of yesterday will no longer apply.
Fifthly, the traditional nation-state, which has been the foundation for the relations between states, will continue to undergo profound change in this century. Thus, for example, by the mid 2050s, 50 percent of the citizens of the Russian Federation may be of the Muslim faith. Religion and ethnic identity may transform the very character of states and political entities. World order as we know it today may be on the brink of an abyss. And I have not mentioned issues like economic turmoil, global warming and health epidemics.
WHAT CAN we do about all this? Where is diplomacy in this struggle for survival?
The first challenge to be met is to prioritize the threats and opportunities. What comes first? The world will not be able to deal with all multiple crises simultaneously. There can be no doubt that the Middle East crises will be close to the top because the three major threats to international order - non-conventional proliferation, Islamic international terror and the oil crisis - have deepest roots in our region. Destiny has catapulted Israel into the heart of all three.
The second necessity will be to prioritize adversaries and to differentiate between them. None other than Albert Einstein wrote in the 1930s that "to prevent the greater evil, it is necessary that the lesser evil be accepted for the time being." And saying so, he abandoned a longtime support of pacifism.
Opportunities will arise when we cease to lump all enemies under one heading and deal with them in a more sophisticated and prioritized fashion. One such example should be crafting a difference between dealing with Hamas and al-Qaida. Hamas is regarded by al-Qaida as a sworn enemy - a traitor to the cause. And Hamas feels deeply threatened by the likes of Osama bin Laden and his team. The ability to identify these cracks in the wall of hatred and extremism and to translate them into assets in the war against terror will be a prime challenge in the decades to come.
The third principle that will open up opportunities will be to replace the search for permanent solutions with a preference for interim medium-term arrangements. It will need acceptance of the understanding that conflicts cannot always be solved in tight time frames and therefore rather than prolong hostilities, ad hoc, temporary measures are needed as bridging strategies until time is ripe for genuine reconciliation.
Fourthly, these approaches will clear the international decks so that the international community can concentrate both on constructive cooperation in the fields of economy, health hazards and global warming on the one hand, and create conditions for all-out war on the prioritized threats to international security.
Fifthly, under these circumstances, ad hoc coalitions, almost but not quite like that of 1991 on Iraq, will be formed to confront the greatest threats and dangers together. These coalitions will entail mutual concessions between partners on secondary issues and these concessions may be such as to last for quite some time.
ISRAEL, A major player in the Middle East and a junior player on the international scene, must ensure that, as of now, it becomes an indispensable partner for any future coalition that is created to face down international existential threats whatever the method chosen to deal with them.
One such case in hand is that of Iran, which constantly and loudly advocates putting an end to the existence of Israel as a sovereign and independent state. If all other options fail, the military one might evolve into the only one left "on the table." The dangers for all parties in such a predicament do not require any further explanation.
But should the "diplomatic" option take center stage, it is more than obvious that the items for negotiation will include interests that are most vital to Israel. Euphemisms like "regional security" or "regional hegemony" or guaranteeing Iran's security interests are inseparably bound up with the most acute necessities of Israel. Should Iran go for what is enticingly labeled "the grand bargain," it is unthinkable that this can be negotiated without Israel sitting at the table. No ally of Israel, however loyal and attentive, and the United States is just that, can act as a proxy in defining the sacrifice that Israel might be called to accept and then negotiate it with Iran in Israel's absence.
This is the kind of challenge that diplomacy will face in the years to come. And Iran is but one example - albeit a very major one - of the intricate portfolios that await us.
This, then, is our major diplomatic challenge for the 21st century. We have the military, scientific, economic and cultural assets to ensure our place around the table and to insist on these at all times and on every key matter pertaining to our security and well-being. It is the mission of diplomacy to translate these unique capabilities into a winning combination.
The writer is a former head of the Mossad (1998-2002), national security adviser to prime minister Ariel Sharon (2002-2003) and ambassador to the EU (1996-1998). He is currently head of the Shasha Center for Strategic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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