$50 if you can do this assignment and I receive it back before 8:00 CST time you will have to go into my student guide and click on the link CASE PROFILE and read about it. any question about this assignment let me know. I will respond ASAP!
SOC Assignments:
- Case Profile
- SOC300 Honors Case Profile (400 points)Humanitarian Intervention in South Sudan
I. Overview
Rival South Sudanese factions have fought a civil war since the end of 2013, causing mass displacements, tens of thousands of deaths and widespread hunger. Negotiations between the leaders of these factions are stalled, and as South Sudan’s dry season approaches, it signals intensified fighting and a humanitarian crisis of potentially historic proportions. The president has asked you, as a principal member of the National Security Council (NSC), for options about whether and how the United States should pursue a humanitarian intervention in South Sudan.
II. Case Assessment
In your assessment, after reading the case material, you should consider:
1. What is the current situation in South Sudan and what contributed to its emergence? What kind of threat to the country, its people and the overall region does this situation pose?
2. What are the U.S. policy options in this case, and what are their advantages and disadvantages?
3. What U.S. interests are at stake in this case? As a policymaker, how would you prioritize these various interests, and why?
4. Who are Salva Kiir and Riek Machar and what is the basis of their disagreement?
5. What does the “responsibility to protect” mean how might it be applied in this case?
6. What is the significance of oil to South Sudan and to this conflict specifically?
7. What are the economic, security, political and other challenges that South Sudan faces internally? How do these difficulties affect the crisis and any international response to it?
III. Main Concepts in the Case
- Humanitarian intervention
- A responsibility to protect (R2P)
- Weak or failed states
- Peacekeeping
- Civil war
IV. Your Assignment
You will be one of five members of the National Security Council (NSC) who advises the president about security developments on a global level, and it is your job to decide whether American interests are involved and/or threatened as situations arise around the world. In this case, regardless of the role you choose, you are to write a three-page paper assessing the economic, military and humanitarian situations in South Sudan. Your paper will be numbered and divided into three sections in which you decide:
(1) If any national interests of the U.S. are involved, then what are they? If no interests are involved, then why not?
(2) Does the U.S. have a responsibility to protect (R2P) the people of South Sudan?
(3) If so, what form should that intervention take? If no action is recommended, why not?
This is a project in which you choose one of the five NSC positions listed below and, based on the three questions above, recommend whether the president should intervene in South Sudan.
ØIf you choose to be the vice president, you serve as an all-purpose presidential advisor as well as the individual who makes diplomatic trips abroad.
ØIf you choose to be the secretary of state, you are to concentrate on America’s bilateral relationships, the relationships between foreign countries and the U.S. and analyze the behavior and interests of foreign governments toward the United States.
ØIf you choose to be the secretary of defense, you are to assess the likely implications of U.S. military involvement, both for the immediate crisis and for the United States’ overall strategic position in the region under review.
ØIf you choose to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), you are to determine the likely implications of U.S. military involvement, both for the immediate crisis and for the United States’ overall strategic position in the region under review.
ØIf you choose to be the national security advisor (NSA), you are to make certain a full range of viable policy options has been articulated, coordinate those options and make certain that the prospects for success and failure have been identified for the president.
ØRegardless of your role, in your summary you must include factors such as: (1) should the U.S. intervene or not, and if so, what form of intervention do you recommend? and (2) In addition, if you do recommend intervention, then should it be unilateral or multilateral?
ØI will hold two conference calls in the early weeks of the course to discuss this assignment and answer questions, so it is imperative that you try to attend these. If you absolutely cannot do so, I will record the calls so you can refer to them for any clarification.
V. About the Case
Rival South Sudanese factions have been fighting a brutal civil war since the end of 2013, rendering government institutions completely dysfunctional. Political rivalries between President Salva Kiir (from the Dinka ethnic group) and former Vice President Riek Machar (from the Nuer group) have plunged the country into a horrific conflict marked by ethnically targeted attacks.
Negotiations between the leaders of these factions are stalled, and as South Sudan’s dry season approaches, it signals intensified fighting and a humanitarian crisis of potentially historic proportions. Already, about two million South Sudanese out of a population of 11.6 million have been driven from their homes, causing major disruptions to agricultural production and access to local markets, while food shortages and health needs have simultaneously grown acute. In addition, despite its oil wealth, the country suffers from one of the world’s lowest levels of development. Although a United Nations peacekeeping mission is presently in South Sudan, other countries, including the United States, have begun to consider additional action to protect civilians.
The president has asked the NSC for options on whether and how the United States could pursue a humanitarian intervention in or around South Sudan. NSC officials will need to consider the pressure on the United States to act, including the responsibility to protect (R2P), as well as the significant costs, benefits and risks of a unilateral or multilateral intervention.
VI. Roles
- Vice President of the United States
- Secretary of State
- Secretary of Defense
- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
- National Security Advisor
Role-play
- There is no right or wrong way to write up your research, but the better prepared you are, the more likely you will be able to advance a position effectively, and the more you and your classmates will get out of the experience.
- Be patient but do not hold back from sharing your perspective, either with me or with other members of your class.
- Ensure that the consequences of various decisions are carefully weighed.
- Where appropriate, you might want to find common ground with other NSC members by sharing your research and conclusions.
- You cannot win or lose in this assignment. Instead, you should aim to offer a well-reasoned articulation of your position while making concessions and adjustments where you believe they are warranted.
- Your individual grade on this assignment will depend exclusively on the three pages you write about your assessment of the situation and the quality of your recommendations to the president about whether he should take action.
VII. Interagency Process (The National Security Council)
Whether it aims to meet an acute national security threat or to advance a long-term objective, a successful foreign policymaking process starts with the clear articulation of U.S. interests and goals. The NSC plays a critical role in this effort by serving as the president’s principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials. Its mission is to help the president effectively use a variety of instruments, whether military or diplomatic, to forge policies that advance U.S. national security objectives. The NSC and its staff try to even-handedly manage the policymaking process so that the president can receive a full spectrum of advice from the agencies involved in national security.
VIII. The Members of the National Security Council
Vice President
This is second-highest-ranking official of the U.S. government and first in line to assume the presidency if the president dies, resigns or becomes unable to serve. Though given only one responsibility in the Constitution — to serve as president of the U.S. Senate, with the power to break ties — the vice presidency has become a visible part of the modern White House. Today’s vice presidents undertake a variety of functions, from serving as an all-purpose presidential advisor to carrying out diplomatic trips abroad.
Secretary of State
The Department of State maintains the U.S. diplomatic presence around the world, conducting foreign relations and using an on-the-ground perspective to generate country-specific knowledge. As head of the department, the secretary draws on this knowledge to present an authoritative view of the United States’ bilateral relationships, the relationships between foreign countries and the behavior and interests of foreign governments.
Secretary of Defense
The secretary of defense is the principal defense policy advisor to the president, under whose direction he or she exercises authority over the Department of Defense. In NSC meetings, the secretary analyzes the security situation in the relevant region and explains the likely implications of U.S. military involvement, both for the immediate crisis and for the United States’ overall strategic position.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) is the highest-ranking member of the U.S. military and the principal military advisor to the president, the secretary of defense, the NSC and the Homeland Security Council. The CJCS does not exercise command authority over U.S. troops. Instead, he or she works with the heads of the U.S. military services to provide advice to the president and other senior leaders.
National Security Advisor
The national security advisor (NSA) has a special role in crisis management, serving as the “honest broker” for the national security policy process. Although the president makes final decisions, the NSA is responsible for ensuring that he or she has all the necessary information, that a full range of viable policy options has been articulated, that the prospects for success and failure have been identified, that any legal issues have been addressed, and that all members of the NSC have had the opportunity to contribute.
IX. The Issue
Although a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission has been present in South Sudan since the country’s independence, this crisis has led other countries, including the United States, to consider their own humanitarian interventions. The doctrine of a responsibility to protect (R2P), adopted by the world’s governments in 2005, established a norm for international intervention in cases of crimes against humanity or genocide that the national government cannot or will not stop — a possible development should the conflict in South Sudan intensify. However, this norm is nonbinding and its application in individual cases has proved controversial.
The primary external diplomatic actor is the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a bloc of eight East African countries. Several times, IGAD has threatened both South Sudanese parties with sanctions for not abiding by the terms of past peace agreements. Despite the parties’ consistent disregard for these agreements, however, the IGAD has never enforced sanctions.
Decision Point
South Sudan’s dry season, which runs from November to April and allows troops and vehicles to move more easily, is looming, and negotiations between Kiir’s government forces and Machar’s rebels have created cease-fire agreements that exist only on paper. It seems likely that fighting will continue or even escalate, subjecting civilians to violence, reprisals and possibly even genocide. At the same time, drought, destruction and the loss of the agricultural workforce will further reduce South Sudan’s scarce food supplies. The result is predicted to be a humanitarian crisis of historic proportions.
In this context, the United States faces significant pressure to act. Various interventions are possible to try to affect the political dynamics underlying the humanitarian crisis that include: diplomatic steps, such as increasing U.S. involvement in existing peace talks or convening fresh negotiations; economic measures, such as placing sanctions on South Sudan’s leaders or working to interdict funding to the warring parties; indirect military intervention, such as offering intelligence support, training or arms to one side or the other; or direct military intervention, whereby the U.S. sends in members of its armed forces to quell serious disturbances or prevent the loss of life. Every one of these options can be pursued unilaterally or in cooperation with other countries or multilateral organizations such as the Organization of African Unity or the United Nations.
National Security Council members are thus tasked with debating a more limited and immediate question: should the United States pursue a direct humanitarian intervention in South Sudan? Advocates are sure to invoke the R2P doctrine, arguing that conditions in South Sudan resemble those in Rwanda at the onset of that country’s 1994 genocide, which claimed as many as one million lives. Yet NSC members must balance the possible good that a direct intervention could accomplish against the significant dangers and costs that it would entail. This requires carefully defining the goals of an intervention and the means capable of meeting them. Integral to this deliberation is the reality that the ultimate determinants of South Sudan’s trajectory are the South Sudanese leaders and people themselves, and not the capabilities of the United States.
X. Context
Although South Sudan possesses rich oil deposits, this has not translated into economic gains for the new country’s people. South Sudan’s oil fields have fallen under mismanagement and the threat of violence. Furthermore, South Sudan can export its oil only through pipelines traversing Sudan to the north, with which it has a troubled relationship. South Sudanese leaders have halted their country’s oil production in times of bilateral discord, driving the country deep into debt. By mid-2014, South Sudan’s oil production had fallen to half the level at the time of its 2011 independence. Amid ongoing violence, foreign companies have delayed or canceled oil exploration agreements that might have increased South Sudan’s total capacity for oil production. South Sudanese currency has lost 90 percent of its value, and inflation continues to rise.
Thus, South Sudan’s oil reserves have burdened it with what is known as a “resource curse,” a phenomenon that can limit the growth of competitive industries and breed government corruption. According to the World Bank, “South Sudan is the most oil-dependent country in the world, with oil accounting for almost the totality of exports, and for around 60 percent of its gross domestic product.” A small portion of South Sudan’s population does profit from oil revenues, but about half of its people live on less than one dollar a day. Given a dearth of other opportunities, some three-quarters of South Sudanese rely on subsistence agriculture for their livelihood.
Compounding these difficulties, allegations of corruption are widespread. Current and former government officials have been accused of stealing billions of dollars of public money, and much of the national budget is spent on salaries, particularly for military officials. Transparency International ranked South Sudan 164th of 168 countries on its 2015 Corruption Perception Index. Because of these circumstances, South Sudan is extraordinarily underdeveloped. A bit smaller than Texas, it has fewer than 250 miles of paved roads, and according to the World Bank’s latest figures, only 5.1 percent of the population has access to electricity. The maternal mortality rate is reported to be one of the world’s highest. More than 80 percent of the population lacks access to improved toilet facilities, and just 27 percent of South Sudanese (and 16 percent of women) are literate.
The United States has played a significant diplomatic role in Sudan since the early 2000s. It helped broker the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), the leading southern rebel group. The country seceded from Sudan in a 2011 referendum supported by 98.8 percent of the electorate. Despite a minimal economic relationship with South Sudan, the United States has made substantial investments in the country’s development; over fiscal years 2014 through 2016, the United States gave South Sudan nearly $1.6 billion in humanitarian assistance. Over the years, the United States has also voted to authorize — and has funded — a series of UN peacekeeping missions in the region.
XI. Root Causes
South Sudan’s simmering humanitarian crisis has three principal root causes, which stem from both underlying conditions and the civil war that began in December 2013.
1. General Underdevelopment
South Sudan faces grave development challenges. As noted above, infrastructure is scarce, mortality astronomical, and literacy low. A person born in South Sudan today could expect, on average, to live only to age fifty-five, almost a quarter century less than someone born in the United States.
Basic functions of government are also in short supply. This stems in part from the nation’s political history. As a young state, and as the recipient of large infusions of foreign aid and the target of efforts by numerous UN missions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), South Sudan has little experience building or managing government institutions on its own.
2. Political and Ethnic Conflict
The most conspicuous cause of South Sudan’s current humanitarian crisis is the politico-military conflict between Kiir and Machar, which erupted in December 2013 after years of mounting resentment and rivalry. Kiir has attempted to consolidate his executive power and has proven consistently reluctant to distribute power among other officials. Meanwhile, as vice president, Machar sought to weaken the central government in favor of South Sudan’s ten state governments — particularly the state of Unity, where he wields significant influence. As the principal rebel leader, Machar now calls for government reform and a loosening of Kiir’s grip on power. The political conflict has also exploited ethnic affiliations. Kiir’s status as a Dinka and Machar’s status as a Nuer have frequently driven loyalties in the civil war along sectarian lines. Atrocities committed by both sides have been overwhelmingly sectarian. Government forces targeted Nuers in Juba, killing thousands; Nuers responded with reprisal attacks against Dinkas. Such clashes show little sign of abating.
3. The Struggle for Resources
Two resources have fueled the civil conflict in South Sudan: oil and agricultural assets. The rich oil fields in the northern part of South Sudan have proved crucial targets for both Kiir and Machar. Before 2012, South Sudan’s oil accounted for 98 percent of the country’s exports. These deposits attracted the interest of some of the world’s largest oil companies, driving billions of dollars in foreign investment. Although oil did not precipitate the civil war, control of oil fields has become a major focus of subsequent fighting. Each side is afraid that the other party will use oil revenues to finance weapons.
As a consequence of South Sudan’s civil war and underdevelopment, agricultural resources have also become objects of conflict. Competition over food, clean water supplies, and cattle — long a mainstay of the agricultural economy whose value has driven clashes since before the civil war — has led to significant violence. Both individual and systematic attack patterns can be attributed to the desire for sustenance and control over these supplies.
XII. The Role of the United States
NSC members will need to weigh political pressures to do something about the rapidly unfolding humanitarian crisis in South Sudan against the reality that humanitarian intervention is never without costs and risk. Aid workers need adequate security and crowd-control capabilities. When violent conflict is the primary driver of a humanitarian crisis — and especially when the intervention occurs in an area of ongoing hostilities — the risk to peacekeeping and civilian personnel increases greatly. If American personnel are sent into South Sudan, they are going to become intimately involved in peacekeeping efforts and their lives may be at risk in the ongoing civil war. The question for the NSC is to decide whether this threat is worth the possibility of their stopping the current humanitarian crisis from taking the lives of thousands more South Sudanese.
Policy Options
NSC members have three main policy options to consider:
1. No direct military intervention
Refraining from direct military intervention is always an option. Indeed, given the costs, risks and complications of the other options described, restraint deserves as much consideration as direct action. It would save taxpayer dollars and keep American aid workers and troops out of harm’s way, not to mention that a poorly executed U.S. military intervention could exacerbate tensions, sparking more fighting and loss of life.
2. Intervention to provide humanitarian aid in neighboring countries
Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese refugees have made it to bordering countries, including Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Sudan. It is likely that these governments and UN agencies would welcome additional assistance from the United States and any partners in providing food, shelter, security, and medical care to the ballooning number of refugees.
3. Intervention in South Sudan itself
Bringing aid to the displaced persons within South Sudan would require a major humanitarian and military intervention. Given the poor condition of the roads and other infrastructure in South Sudan, the United States and any partners would need helicopters to assist in the delivery of aid, as well as generators, communications equipment, and prefabricated shelters to facilitate and sustain the operation. The military would also establish no-fly zones to provide troops and aid workers on the ground more freedom of movement.
a. Exclusively humanitarian intervention
In this option, the United States and any partners would conduct a humanitarian intervention to distribute aid inside South Sudan but would not seek to affect the conflict itself. The only goal would be to relieve human suffering. Personnel would negotiate but not use force if local actors resisted their efforts to distribute assistance. American troops would be authorized to fire only in case of imminent danger to themselves, civilian aid workers, U.S. military equipment, or aid installations or supplies. An intervention under these rules would be possible only as a consensual intervention in which Kiir — and ideally other leaders — allowed the United States and any partners in.
b. Humanitarian intervention with peace enforcement
This is the most ambitious option available: a humanitarian and peace enforcement or peacemaking mission. Its goal would be to address a leading cause of the humanitarian tragedy — the conflict itself — while simultaneously alleviating human suffering. This option requires the same logistical elements as option 3a to enter South Sudan, set up aid delivery stations, and protect aid workers, but it adds another military “line of operation” directed at the warring parties.
For a peace enforcement mission, U.S. and any partner forces would be tasked with enforcing the most recent cease-fire agreement by physically keeping the warring parties apart. This intervention could be — or become — an imposed one depending on how the parties react. Should the cease-fire agreement prove untenable, troops would need to engage in peacemaking, which entails creating the conditions to make a durable peace deal possible. Either way, the military tactics and procedures required for this operation are robust. U.S. forces would be allowed to open fire on any party to the conflict if necessary to prevent it from breaching the cease-fire (e.g., by seeking to gain territory or attack other parties). U.S. troops would also be allowed to use force to defend civilians as well as themselves, their equipment and aid personnel or supplies.
XIII. Notes
(1) The paper must be at least three pages long, not including graphics, which works out to approximately one page for each section.
(2) You must double-space your lines in 12-point font and not have any extra spacing between sections or paragraphs.
(3) You don’t have to cite the articles I have given you below, but if you use any outside sources, they must be listed in a bibliography and cited in the text in the APA style.
(4) Do not capitalize any of the positions in the NSC, including that of the president.
(5) Do not use the personal pronoun “I” in your analysis.
XIV. Glossary
African Union (AU): a regional organization with fifty-four members representing every African country except Morocco. Established in 2002 as an outgrowth of the Organization of African Unity, the AU aims to promote democratic governance, economic development, and intergovernmental cooperation among African countries while protecting national sovereignty and peacefully resolving disputes
Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA): a 2005 accord ending the Sudanese civil war that began in 1983. Among other provisions, the agreement, signed by Sudan’s government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), created a semiautonomous Southern Sudan region and called for the region’s people to vote in a 2011 referendum on independence.
Decentralize: to redistribute power in an organization such that it is exercised by several subgroups rather than concentrated in one central body. In government, this typically means diluting the power of national authorities in favor of regional or local ones.
Desertification: the transformation of land into desert resulting from man-made or natural phenomena. This means the land becomes less suitable for agriculture.
Salva Kiir: the president of South Sudan. An ethnic Dinka and longtime southern rebel, Kiir became vice president of Sudan, president of Southern Sudan, and head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) after John Garang’s 2005 death. Kiir was elected president of the new South Sudan at the country’s independence in 2011.
Riek Machar: the head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO). An ethnic Nuer and a longtime member of the mainstream SPLM/A, Machar formed his own splinter rebel group in the 1990s and then served in the Sudanese government before reconciling with the SPLM/A in 2002. Machar served as vice president of Southern and then South Sudan from 2005 to 2013, when Kiir fired him.
Multilateral: undertaken among three or more entities, usually countries. The term frequently describes organizations such as the UN.
No-fly zone: an area where aircraft are prohibited from flying, sometimes imposed in conflict zones and enforced with the threat of armed retaliation. A recent international example is the no-fly zone over Libya approved by the UN Security Council (UNSC) in 2011.
Norm: a broadly accepted principle of behavior that may not be formally written but is generally followed by members of a group, such as countries in the international system.
Referendum: a vote, typically organized by a government, in which participants approve or reject a certain policy proposal. This is a form of direct democracy, in which citizens themselves (as opposed to elected representatives) make a policy decision.
Resource curse: the notion — disputed by some scholars — that an abundance of natural resources in a country might not produce widespread prosperity but instead inspire endemic corruption and limit the development of a broad-based economy.
The Responsibility to protect (R2P): a nonbinding norm holding that outside powers have a responsibility to intervene in response to a government’s failure to protect its population from mass atrocities such as genocide, even though this violates the government’s sovereignty. The world’s governments adopted the R2P doctrine in 2005, but it remains controversial and unevenly applied.
Sanctions: a tool of statecraft, frequently involving economic measures such as asset freezes and trade restrictions, used to exact a certain behavior or outcome from another party. The U.S. and EU sanctions against Russian companies and individuals that aim to encourage Russia to end its interference in Ukraine are an example.
Secession: the act of breaking away from a territory or leaving an organization, usually for the purposes of establishing a new one. The secession of eleven southern, slaveholding states from the United States and their subsequent establishment of the Confederate States of America led to the American Civil War.
Sectarian: characterized by differences among religious or political subgroups or sects, such as Sunni and Shi’a Muslims.
Southern Sudan: a semiautonomous region of Sudan in existence from 2005 to 2011. It became defunct with the secession and independence of the sovereign country of South Sudan.
Subsistence agriculture: a type of farming in which nearly all products are consumed by the farmer’s family and not sold for profit, leaving the farmer with little if any income.
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A): South Sudan’s ruling political party and armed forces, led by President Salva Kiir. The SPLM/A began under John Garang’s leadership as a rebel group against the Sudanese government and has long represented a broad constituency with sometimes divergent goals.
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO): the South Sudanese rebel group led by former Vice President Riek Machar. Mostly Nuer and often supported by smaller militias, the SPLM/A-IO is a splinter group from South Sudan’s ruling party and armed forces. It has not expressed a consistent agenda.
Sudanese civil war: an armed conflict between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), sparked by the 1983 creation of the SPLM/A. The war, which also involved various smaller militias, is considered to be a continuation of earlier hostilities between Khartoum and southern rebels that occurred from 1955 to 1972. It ended with the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
Unilateral: an act undertaken by only one entity, generally a country.
XV. Suggested Reading List
The Issue
Peter Dörrie, “No One Is Winning South Sudan’s Civil War,” War Is Boring, April 28, 2015, https://medium.com/war-is-boring/no-one-is-winning-south-sudan-s-civil-war-3d95e9f12af0.
Andrew Green, “South Sudan Food Crisis Deepens Amid Tanking Economy,” IRIN, June 1, 2015, http://www.irinnews.org/report/101565/south-sudan-food-crisis-deepens-amid-tanking-economy.
Context
Simona Foltyn, “Independent South Sudan’s Economic Woes,” Al Jazeera, July 8, 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/07/independent-south-sudans-economic-woes-150705112843046.html.
Rebecca Hamilton, “Seize This Crisis to Push South Sudan Reform,” Reuters, January 9, 2014, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/01/09/seize-this-crisis-to-push-south-sudan-reform/.
Root Causes
Pamela Dockins, “What Triggered the Kiir-Machar Rift in South Sudan?” Voice of America, January 9, 2014, http://www.voanews.com/content/what-triggered-the-kir-machar-rift-in-south-sudan/1826903.html.
Further Reading
Jon Lee Anderson, “A History of Violence,” The New Yorker, July 23, 2012, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/23/a-history-of-violence-4.
Nicholas Bariyo, “South Sudan’s Economy Dragged Down by War, Report Says,” The Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/south-sudan-conflict-could-cost-28-billion-over-five-years-report-says-1421244475.
Lauren Ploch Blanchard, “Sudan and South Sudan: Current Issues for Congress and U.S. Policy,” Report no. R42774, Congressional Research Service, October 5, 2012, https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42774.pdf.
Alex de Waal, “Sizzling South Sudan: Why Oil Is Not the Whole Story,” Foreign Affairs, February 7, 2013, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/sudan/2013-02-07/sizzling-south-sudan.
Alex de Waal and Abdul Mohammed, “Breakdown in South Sudan: What Went Wrong — and How to Fix It,” Foreign Affairs, January 1, 2014, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/sudan/2014-01-01/breakdown-south-sudan.
Charlton Doki and Adam Mohamed Ahmad, “‘Africa’s Arms Dump’: Following the Trail of Bullets in the Sudans,” The Guardian, October 2, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/02/-sp-africa-arms-dump-south-sudan.
Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, “The Responsibility to Protect,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2002, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2002-11-01/responsibility-protect.
Lee Feinstein and Anne-Marie Slaughter, “A Duty to Prevent,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2004, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2004-01-01/duty-prevent.
Peter Greste, “Thinking Outside the Ethnic Box in South Sudan,” Al Jazeera, December 28, 2013, http://blogs.aljazeera.com/blog/africa/thinking-outside-ethnic-box-s-sudan.
Zlatica Hoke, “South Sudan Conflict Fuels Humanitarian Crisis,” Voice of America, March 7, 2015,http://www.voanews.com/content/south-sudan-conflict-fuels-humanitarian-crisis/2671353.html.
Princeton Lyman and Kate Almquist Knopf, “To Save South Sudan, Put it on Life Support,” The Financial Times, July 20, 2016, http://next.ft.com/content/c4f24d75-b2d7-3667-bcb2-6d25be5f3f75.
Colum Lynch, “Inside the White House Fight Over the Slaughter in South Sudan,” Foreign Policy, January 26, 2015, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/26/exclusive-inside-the-white-house-fight-southsudan-obama-conflict-susanrice-unitednations/.
Justin Lynch, “Is There Any Hope Left for South Sudan?” The New Yorker, July 14, 2016, http://newyorker.com/news/news-desk/is-there-any-hope-left-for-south-sudan?intcid=mod-latest?reload.
Jason Patinkin, “Four Years On, a Harrowing Sense of Déjà Vu in South Sudan,” The Christian Science Monitor, July 8, 2015, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2015/0708/Four-years-on-a-harrowing-sense-of-deja-vu-in-South-Sudan.
Stewart Patrick, “A New Lease on Life for Humanitarianism,” Foreign Affairs, March 24, 2011, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/2011-03-24/new-lease-life-humanitarianism.
Philip Roessler, “Why South Sudan Has Exploded in Violence,” The Washington Post, December 24, 2013,http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/12/24/why-south-sudan-has-exploded-in-violence/.
Marc Santora, “As South Sudan Crisis Worsens, There Is No More Country,” The New York Times, June 22, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/23/world/africa/as-south-sudan-crisis-worsens-there-is-no-more-country.html.
“Soaked in Oil: The Cost of War in South Sudan,” Al Jazeera, March 4, 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/03/soaked-oil-cost-war-south-sudan-150302102747401.html.
Jérôme Tubiana, “An Elusive Peace in South Sudan,” Foreign Affairs, February 3, 2015, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/africa/2015-02-03/elusive-peace-south-sudan?cid=nlc-foreign_affairs_today-020415-an_elusive_peace_in_south_suda_5-020415&sp_mid=47954946&sp_rid=c21hbGNvbXNvbkBnbWFpbC5jb20S1.
XVI. Background Articles
No One Is Winning South Sudan’s Civil War: Which Means That Neither Side Has a Reason to Call It Quits
By Peter Dorrie, February 2016
A great storm is coming to South Sudan, quite literally. Sometime during the next month, the rainy season will start in earnest and render much of the country inaccessible. The rains will bring a reprieve for the country’s 16-month-old civil war — no roads mean no troop movements. Neither the government nor the rebels have an air force to speak of, nor the airborne capacity to follow up on bombings with ground troops. But President Salva Kiir’s army — and rebels loyal to his former deputy Riek Machar — are ratcheting up the fighting to put themselves in the best position before the rains.
This makes it harder for humanitarian organizations to prepare. Just like last year, many of the country’s thousands of refugees will suffer and die in overcrowded and inundated camps, even though active fighting will subside. If peace talks ever occur, they are unlikely to result in a peace deal worth the paper it’s written on. Neither the government, nor the rebels want to compromise. Kiir has said previously that he will not enter into any kind of power sharing deal with Machar, and Machar’s faction won’t stop fighting without one.
Similarly, neither faction has any reason to fear a drawn-out conflict. Both sides lack the ability to effectively control the vast and inaccessible expanse that is South Sudan by either military or political means. That makes a clear military victory by the government or the rebels unlikely. In the meantime, warlords and politicians on both sides can profit from the war economy and enjoy the amenities of Addis Ababa’s nicest hotels when its time for the next round of “negotiations.”
This kind of war profiteering is a tradition in South Sudan. The country never managed to leave its decades of civil war with the Republic of Sudan, from which it seceded in 2011, behind. South Sudan’s dominant political party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, is in fact a mixture of political and armed groups that never got completely untangled from each other. During the run-up to independence, the SPLM rapidly integrated dozens of militias and independent rebel groups — and gave hundreds of essentially illiterate “generals” generous monthly allowances.
Before the outbreak of the current civil war in 2013, during which large parts of the army defected, only Russia had more officers of general rank than South Sudan. For a precious two years, the SPLA was able to hold up a facade of stability by pulling out the checkbook whenever one of the “generals” went back into the bush to air his grievances by pillaging, warring and killing. The current conflict follows the same dynamic, although on a larger scale and with even more suffering.
So far, the conflict has only touched a few parts of South Sudan, with much of the current fighting concentrated in Upper Nile and Unity states. Both factions have only limited support, and Machar and Kiir are not indisputable leaders of their respective groups. Should the conflict spread to other parts of the country, human suffering could multiply. Already, the South Sudanese government is allegedly targeting influential politicians from the Equatoria region bordering Uganda. The local politicians in Equatoria have stayed on the sidelines.
The longer the civil war goes on, the higher is the probability that South Sudan sees some form of “Balkanization” of the conflict with a proliferating number of independent and quasi-independent militias and warlords — making any attempt at ending the conflict ever more unlikely. To make matters worse, the civil war has already become internationalized. The Ugandan government was very quick to throw its weight behind Kiir, sending its army over the border to hold the regime in power. Kiir has reportedly also employed fighters of various Sudanese rebel groups as proxies against Machar’s troops. This isn’t going to go over well with Sudan’s government. Khartoum has a long history of using its own proxies to further its interest in South Sudan. Both countries almost went to war with each other over control of the Heglig oil fields in 2012.
Sudan could also feel threatened by Uganda’s increasing influence in South Sudan, and decide to prop up Machar’s rebels as a counterweight. Mediation attempts by South Sudan’s neighbors have so far proven to be useless. It’s no different for the international community. The United States and the European Union have little to show for their efforts, especially since it was during their stewardship of the independence process that many of the current problems arose. The European Union has already leveled sanctions against some of the protagonists of the conflict and the United Nations has threatened to do the same.
The sanctions are unlikely to hurt, as South Sudan doesn’t have a developed economy. Given that South Sudan’s elite is very proficient at profiting from conflict, it’s questionable that anything but the most severe sanctions can convince the warring parties to settle the conflict with peaceful means. But there’s a sliver of hope that time will take care of things. Most of the leaders of both sides in the conflict are old, having been among the nation’s leadership since the days of the independence war. A new generation of leaders could bring a different dynamic to politics in South Sudan, ideally one in which war is a very last resort.
World Order 2.0: The Case for Sovereign Obligation
Richard Haass, January – February 2017
For nearly four centuries, since the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War, the concept of sovereignty — the right of nations to an independent existence and autonomy — has occupied the core of what international order there has been. This made sense, for as every century including the current one has witnessed, a world in which borders are forcibly violated is a world of instability and conflict. But an approach to international order premised solely on respect for sovereignty, together with the maintenance of the balance of power necessary to secure it, is no longer sufficient. The globe’s traditional operating system — call it World Order 1.0 — has been built around the protection and prerogatives of states. It is increasingly inadequate in today’s globalized world. Little now stays local; just about anyone and anything, from tourists, terrorists, and refugees to e-mails, diseases, dollars, and greenhouse gases, can reach almost anywhere. The result is that what goes on inside a country can no longer be considered the concern of that country alone. Today’s circumstances call for an updated operating system — call it World Order 2.0 — that includes not only the rights of sovereign states but also those states’ obligations to others.
From the late 1990s onward, a new liberal idea gained ground: that governments that mistreat their populations and foment instability in their neighborhoods forfeit their sovereign right to rule. The International Criminal Court, which encroaches on sovereignty in the name of justice, was established in 1998. One year later, British Prime Minister Tony Blair laid out his doctrine of liberal interventionism in Chicago, declaring that, in a world of growing interdependence, “the principle of non-interference must be qualified in some important respects.” In 2005, the UN General Assembly endorsed the “responsibility to protect,” the concept that when a state fails to prevent atrocities, foreign governments can intervene to do so. Such a concept of “sovereign obligation,” it is worth pointing out, differs from the notion of “sovereignty as responsibility,” which lies at the heart of the legal doctrine known as “the responsibility to protect,” or R2P. R2P refers to the obligations a government has to protect its own citizens — commitments that, if ignored, are supposedly enforceable by other states through measures up to and including military intervention. It clearly represents a potential infringement on classic Westphalian sovereignty, and it has supporters and opponents for that very reason. (Instructor’s emphasis)
By contrast, sovereign obligation is about what a country owes to other countries. It stems from a need to expand and adapt the traditional principles of international order for a highly-interconnected world. Sovereign obligation thus retains a respect for borders and an opposition to their being changed through coercion or force. It supports actions to enforce the norm against aggression, whether the incident involves Iraq invading Kuwait or Russia invading Crimea. And it retains a respect for governments’ rights to act generally as they wish within their borders, subject to the constraints of broadly accepted provisions of international law, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention. Sovereign obligation does not reject or replace the traditional approach to order—one that remains necessary but is no longer sufficient—so much as it builds on it.
A further discussion holds that the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a global political commitment which was endorsed by all member states of the United Nations at the 2005 World Summit to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The principle of the R2P is based on the underlying premise that sovereignty entails a responsibility to protect all populations from mass atrocity crimes and human rights violations. The principle is based on a respect for the norms and principles of international law, especially the underlying principles of law relating to sovereignty, peace and security, human rights, and armed conflict.
The R2P provides a framework for employing measures that already exist (i.e., mediation, early warning mechanisms and economic sanctions) to prevent atrocity crimes and to protect civilians from their occurrence. The authority to employ the use of force under the framework of the Responsibility to Protect rests solely with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council